Oregonian

There are a couple of pieces of info I need to add, just for the record. Evergreen's bankruptcy is due solely to Del Smith's financial management. He had great successes, but never used the opportunity to pay off debt. His risk management of the company and the fact that he was a gunslinger of the first degree is what bankrupted the company. He never saw an opportunity he could say no to. There were some financial irregularities between Smith and the museum, but it wasn't nearly what people thought. Smith personally financed the museums since the beginning. At the end of Evergreen Airlines, Smith decided to pull back some of the funds he had recently donated. While that is certainly not acceptable, it isn't the criminal conspiracy it was originally portrayed to be. Bill Stoller, a local business man (see Express Personnel) and wine guy bought both the air and space museums (in separate transactions) and has stated his intent to leave an endowment with enough money so the museums can last for hundreds of years. He needs to - they lose money, as many flight museums do. Del Smith had a great thing going with the museums. There were always 30-40 retired guys who would work on them for free. Smith would contact the military and ask for a plane. He would get the response "fly one of your 747's down to Davis Monthan, pick one out and fly it back. We'll call it a loan". The volunteers would then restore it and put it in one of the museums. In my opinion, the coolest plane out there isn't the Spruce Goose, it is the SR-71. You can actually touch it.

That is Evergreen Museum's Gulfstream II Shuttle Training Aircraft. They keep it outside and use it constantly in fundraiser aircraft "pulls" for Special Olympics and other organizations. Let me know when you're headed out there again and I can get you in the museum and on the deck of the Spruce Goose for a VIP tour thing for free. (I bought a membership awhile ago that includes that option).

The part owner/manager/whatever of Hillsboro Motosport is a hard core VFR guy. He bought overstock/crated seventh and eighth generation VFRs at the big auction in southern California and trucked them up to Oregon. They still have a dozen or so VFR 1200X's for sale. I have purchased bikes from the dealership over the years but it was never easy. They have a relatively small showroom and multiple warehouses spread all over the place. They were not great at attention to detail during pre-Covid lulls in motorcycle buying and now they just don't seem to care much about customer satisfaction at all. They do have good inventory due to their focus on the auctions.

They sold out quickly. What a great deal. No shipping to the US however.

OP - that looks photoshopped. The silver rear panel under the seat doesn't look right. The distance between the wheels doesn't look long enough to be real either.

The rear carrier piece (the thing you need if you want to utilize the rear trunk) is made out of steel (with a rubber grip on the bottom) and looks and feels great.

I had the OEM low seat and hated it. The vinyl is the same super-slippery stuff they used on the 2010 seat. My main complaint was the seat was much narrower than the standard seat. It wasn't comfortable.