Illuminati

For a while now Silverlake has looked like Via Del Corso at rush hour, with aging hipsters zipping on motorscooters from café to yoga class, but no longer. Those ristretto-sipping fops on their dainty Motorini are choking down exhaust while tattooed girls in leather barrel past them on their Illuminati big bikes.

Illuminati is a hidden motorcycle shop located just off Sunset Blvd. that specializes in Japanese antiques.  40-year-old Barron Gunter is the owner of Illuminati, which he started four months ago with only two bikes to sell.  Nowadays Gunter’s shop revs, groans and awakens neighbors with more than 60 motorcycles, most of which are sports bikes dating back to the Nixon Administration.  Called Café-racers by East-LA hipsters, the motorcycles are driven and drooled over by the artier habitants of this commuter city.

Illuminati motorcycles are salvaged from the Country’s yard sales and out from under oblivious Craigslisters–they pile high in the backyard bike shop’s modest garage and floor.  Many of the Hondas, Yamahas, and Suzukis that litter the lot resemble the apocalyptic machines driven by the nomadic cannibals in Mad Max.

When we last spoke, Gunter had just come back from “chasing skirts” and bike shopping in Austin, Texas where he received a tip from a friend about a motorcycle graveyard outside the city.  The friend, according to Gunter, works for “Black Ops” and spotted this bike heaven from a Blackhawk helicopter.  “This place is not on the internet,” says Gunter who will soon cart home 20 bikes from the salvage pit to make them shine on the Illuminati lot.

Barron Gunter is a manly-man who picks the filters off of his Parliament cigarettes and puts them out on the souls of his dark leather cowboy boots.  Despite his 6’4 frame and gnarled hands, he has a charming and sweet disposition, which undeniably aids in slinging bikes to an often-unknowing clientele who view biking as a means to dodge the rising gas prices.  For those who do know the wonder of vintage bikes, Gunter may give you a great deal simply because he likes the way you look atop one.

The mostly four stroke engines (some 2-stroke) are capable of reaching 120 mph and sell anywhere from 1,000 bucks to 3,500, which is a steal for these retuned and spruced-up beauties that, if broken, can be fixed free of charge in the shop.  Barron and his bikes exude a bohemian machismo that is transforming the neighborhood and solidifies Illuminati as the place to go in LA to summon one’s inner Steve McQueen.

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Words by Mickey Stanley
Photography by Richard Masland

Illuminati Motorcycles
966 Vendome St.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(323) 868‑5723