When people see the Bullitt Clockwork for the first time, they almost never call it by its real name. “Clockwork Orange,”they say. Nowhere on the bike is that name written, but hey, this one was an easy catch.
The Clockwork was one of the very first Bullitts back in 2008. And it stood out. Orange up top, black on the bottom, everything else blacked out. No polished metal, no silver bits. Just orange and black. The idea came from a car – the Saab Sonett III, early seventies. A small Scandinavian sports car with bright colours and lines that looked like they were drawn on a Friday night. Larry & Harry liked that sort of thing. They’ve always had a soft spot for the seventies: the cars, the movies, the design choices that made people argue in bars.
The name came obviously from A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess wrote the book, Stanley Kubrick made the film in ’71. A film that shocked, confused, and fascinated all at once. When the Bullitt appeared in 2008, it did something similar. It looked like it had landed from another planet, parked itself in Copenhagen, and decided to stay.
Kubrick once said: “I’m not making a movie about violence, I’m making a movie against violence.” With the Clockwork, the idea wasn’t about violence, but it was about attention. We wanted a bike that made people stop, look, and maybe even rethink what a cargo bike could be. Sounds like a big wish, right? But somehow, we did kick off a discussion. And the discussion is still going. We still get emails today – some offended, some thankful, some just puzzled that a bike company would play around with names like this.
Then the boring paint regulations came along. The black lower frame had to go, so the Clockwork went full orange. Same bike, just brighter. A few years ago, we updated the graphics, but the orange stayed.
Over the years, different faces found their way onto the Clockwork. Che Guevara has shown up on the Clockwork which filled the inbox again. Then came the Grauballe Man, Denmark’s famous bog body (this one we’re ok if you didn’t get). Two thousand years old, dug out of a peat bog, suddenly staring out from a cargo bike. Why not? Nowadays, Beethoven is riding the Clockwork (we hope you got the reference – it isn’t exactly hidden) Some riders even swear they saw Elvis. But we would not be so stupid that we challenged the property of Graceland, would we!?
The Clockwork keeps rolling. Orange, sharp, impossible to miss. Still making people talk, and apparently it also makes you wonder what the hell just happened – but that’s only if you listen to the The Bullitt Clockwork Mixtape.
