The full-scale Elvis Presley – the King to you and me – has been immortalized in many memorable media. The most prevalent is the wax Elvis made popular by the Madame Tussaud’s chain of paraffin zombie shops. Occasionally, someone will mock up a life-size Elvis in cheddar cheese or scrap wood or Bondo. More recently, a Lego Elvis invaded Austria.
Elvis was a motorhead known to keep a collection of cars and motorcycles ranging from a herd of Cadillacs to a flock of Harley-Davidsons, as well as several BMWs he leased while stationed with the Army in Germany. He also gave away cars like they give out pepperoni pizza samples at the Real Canadian Wholesale Club.
Now a bronze Elvis will be forever riding one of his beloved Harleys, a 1956 KHK thought to be one of the first big-ticket items to which the then-newly-wealthy King treated himself.
Much like the meatspace Elvis at the end of his career, the bronze and stainless steel effigy is a little over one and a half meters high, more than two meters in diameter, and weighs in at over 450 kilograms. Unlike the real Elvis, the sculpture was created by Jeff Decker, the official Harley-Davidson sculptor, using the traditional lost wax casting process and a live human model, though presumably not at the same time.
The sculpture will live at Bruce Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona, the world’s largest Harley-Davidson dealer, in Ormond Beach, Florida. Coincidentally, or not, a Harley dealership opened two years ago at Graceland, the Elvis Mecca.
[Autoweek]