New fleet ready for inspection
Renowned Carmel Valley vintner and clothier Robert Talbott likes to say, “I don’t collect motorcycles; I collect stories.”
With that in mind, the 165 — and counting — motorbikes on display in his new Moto Talbott Collection museum in Carmel Valley Village make for an entertaining anthology as well as eye candy. They hail from 16 countries, with the earliest model from 1911 and the latest from the early ’80s, spread across two floors in a renovated former office building.
“We consider them art and we have concurrence from the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art,” notes Talbott, who sold his namesake winery to Gallo before opening the museum last September.
Dirt bikes, flat track bikes, scooters and Grand Prix racers share space with oddities such as a pod-shaped sidecar, a Coach-brand scooter covered in the company’s interlocking logo and a World War II-era Harley-Davidson teaching bike with tommy gun holder, vintage maps and cutaways for prospective mechanics. Many are virtually one of a kind, as short but intriguing placards reveal, and nearly all of them still run, thanks to the on-site shop overseen by curator and restorer Bobby Weindorf.
The museum also houses movie posters, uniforms and other motorcycle memorabilia, including items from Talbott’s youthful racing career.
“Everything is interspersed, and some of it is just wacky stuff,” Talbott says. “I want people to stay, and they do, for hours, because it’s just fun stuff.”