Vinnie from OCC Starts His Own Chopper Company

Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by turrboleach

I’ve been a very big fan of the American Chopper reality show even before it’s episodes where available on my cable service. Even before I got to watch my first episode, a lot of people were already wearing OCC merchandise. I would be able to watch shows of the infamous OCC shop on youtube or from downloaded videos in my friend’s house. I remember being astonished by how they could start with what seemed like just scraps of metal, a bunch of tubing, a V-Twin engine, and transform those materials to a precisely engineered chopper. And don’t forget how awesome looking these bikes were.

One of the big factors behind these great choppers in my opinion was Vinnie. He was always the guy with the solutions when everyone else had question marks on their foreheads during bike builds. Vinnie would crack jokes while working on what seemed to be really complicated wiring tasks. The exhausts he built were the coolest looking things too.

It was very entertaining to watch him keep his cool while being sandwiched between the chaos of Senior’s nagging and him and Junior’s arguments. God knows if that was me i would’ve probably covered both my ears and start screaming random blurbs out loud just to drown out the verbal battery. After a couple of days of that i’d probably need medication. Or maybe just run out and never come back. But Vinnie just kept cool and managed to blurt a funny comment to level the insanity (with Mike’s help of course).

That episode when Vinnie quit OCC was a big “what the f*??” moment for me considering he was a major factor in the success of the show and the chopper builds.

Here’s what he said:

“I had gone as far as I could there. I really didn’t have any chance for advancement, and I had always wanted to have my own shop, so the natural progression was to leave and start my own place. Nothing against them, but it was time to move on.” (wikipedia)

When Vinnie left, senior said: “everyone’s replaceable”. Manpower maybe, but talent in building bikes? I don’t think so.

After Vinnie left,he created V-Force Customs a chopper shop located at Rock Tavern New York with Cody. One of the first bikes they built was the V-Force 1. They have also created bikes for The AFL’s Tampa Bay Storm, The Geese Chasers, and footballer Fred Pickering. Not a bad start.

Considering the Chopper building talent between him and Cody, I’m pretty sure they’ll have success. A reality show wouldn’t be a bad idea too. OCC spinoff anyone??

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