I originally built this bike back in 2013 to display all the new Pickard USA products we were manufacturing at the time. I picked [the bike] up at an auction and it was smashed in the front end, but the frame checked out to be straight. The frame was already painted Sedona Orange, so we decided to base the color scheme around that. We had our painter lay down a coat of Sedona Orange with a heavy metalflake, then sent it to Quitero Luciano (King’s Custom Airworks) for the airbrush work. At the time, it wasn’t very common to see a lowrider paint job on a bagger, so we told King to roll with it and he blew us away. Since we built this bike as a parts display, we decided to keep it pretty mild to give our customers an idea of what they could do to their bagger to make it stand out from the crowd.

The thing that stands out about [our Chulita Street Glide] has to be King’s paint job. Everywhere I go people are drawn to the detail and time that went into this paint scheme. From the bass boat flake to the airbrushed shadows, it has always been an eye grabber. I’d say the paint draws people’s attention to the bike, then they start noticing all the parts we manufacture and start asking about fitments for their own bike. That was the whole goal of building Chulita, so hats off to the Pickard crew!

I’d say the most difficult part was to keep the build reasonable, since we have access to a whole product line of parts. Originally we were going to build a 30-inch stretched-out bagger with our longer bags, etc., but we knew that isn’t something most people could relate to. Everything on this bike was a bolt-on part, which the average guy could install in his garage. This bike was built for riders to give them an idea of what they could realistically build and tackle themselves and be proud to take to bike nights and shows.