Dick Allen's shop.........

I'm pretty sure most of you have seen this famous snapshot of Dick Allen and Locomotion, taken in front of his shop space on Normandie, in Torrance, CA. It was shot by Steve Iorio (AKA Steve Nelson, Dr. Pain, etc.).

I scanned this picture from an old Supercycle Flix and Chix section, and posted it almost 10 years ago on Nelson Kano's message board. Somebody right clicked it, and posted it somewhere else, and it's been going around the internet ever since.

It's the quintentesinal Dick Allen pose, with his Mason jar "full of iced tea" as they said in the caption (yeah, right), and his Chucks. What makes this the great shot it is, is that you can see virtually every component that Dick was famous for fabricating mounted on his bike, all in one photo.

Thanks to Jahluv, from the JJ board, for snapping the current picture for me, on a trip to see Sugar Bear.


Here's Dick's old shop today. It really doesn't look all that much different than it did almost 30 years ago. Those are the two overhead doors Dick was photographed in front of, in the upper picture. It even looks like the original iron window grating are still there.

In the top photo, just to the left of Dick , we can see a narrow entrance door, and a downspout. You can still see the door and downspout in the lower picture, but the parking lot has been partitioned all the way across with a chainlink fence right in that area. The reason for the fencing is because a huge cellular transfer tower now occupies that area of the parking lot.

You can make the pilgrimage to Dick's old shop if you're inclined, the address is 18720 Normandie, Torrance CA, just off the 110 Freeway.