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For the casual Evel Knievel fan, there’s the Evel Knievel Stunt Set toy, for the obsessive fan, there’s the Evel Knievel replica helmet.
An exact replica of the great man’s headwear, it’s hand-painted onto an original pre-1980 helmet and detailed using real gold leaf. An actual Evel autograph and picture of Evel signing the helmet, along with a padded helmet bag complete the set.
And you just know it isn’t going to be cheap. It’s priced at $1299 (around £670) and comes with a certificate of authenticity to justify the outlay.
As a child I was taken to see Evil Knievel jump over a load of buses at Wembley Stadium way back in the 1970’s and when, inevitably, he clipped the last bus and crashed down the landing ramp I didn’t understand why my older brothers were splitting their sides laughing at the commentator (David Hemmings) shouting out repeatedly over the public address ‘don’t touch his helmet’ ….
I know the artist who painted all of Evel’s helmets and bikes. The story goes that Evel himself told his helpers “Don’t touch my *** helmet” at his crash at Wembley!
If you ever want to see his work, or get a real replica from the actual artist who painted them, you can see his stuff at Sedlakstudio.com.
You may well be right James – I was only 10 or so at the time and the build up to Evel’s jump lasted several hours with him going slowly up and down the ramp repeatedly before he made the actual jump which put rather a downer on the whole day for an easily bored child (as I was then!). However, whoever it was that actually said ‘don’t touch his helmet’ it came over loud and clear on the public address system and certainly amused my older brothers!