Craig Vetter

Craig Vetter
A gray haired man wearing a blue open shirt sitting at a motorcycle show in 2016
Vetter in 2016
Born (1942-07-28) July 28, 1942 (age 82)
Selma, Alabama, US
EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
OccupationMotorcycle designer
SpouseCarol Vetter
AwardsAMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame
Craig Vetter with Streamliner
Craig Vetter posing with his 1981 streamliner at AMA Motorcycle Museum in Pickerington, OH, in July 2016.

Craig Vetter (born July 28, 1942)[1] is an American entrepreneur and motorcycle designer. His work was acknowledged when in 1999 he was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.[1]

His Vetter Fairing Company created aftermarket motorcycle fairings in the 1970s before manufacturers themselves included fairings on their products. The product has been cited as once being so ubiquitous that the term "Windjammer" was interchangeable with "fairing".[2] The company at one time was the second largest motorcycle industry manufacturer in the United States, behind only Harley-Davidson.[3]

He founded Equalizer Corp and his innovative human powered design won the Boston Marathon wheelchair class in 1982.

In 1998, Vetter's design for the British Triumph Hurricane was selected to be in the Guggenheim Museum's The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit which toured the world, and has since become a cult icon and much-valued collectors' item among owners' groups.[4]

  1. ^ a b "Craig Vetter: Fairing and Motorcycle Designer, Innovator, Racer", Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame, American Motorcyclist Association, retrieved 2012-10-26
  2. ^ Johnson, David (May 1995), "The wreck of the Mystery Ship", Cycle World: 80, His Windjammer fairings had become so ubiquitous that for all practical purposes the terms "fairing" and "Windjammer" could be used interchangeably--at least until the motorcycle manufacturers followed his lead and started making purpose-built tourers with frame-mounted fairings already installed.
  3. ^ Craig Vetter, Inventor and Designer, Mother Earth News, retrieved 2012-10-26, Vetter Corporation was second largest motorcycle-oriented manufacturing company in the United States. Only Harley-Davidson was bigger
  4. ^ "The Triumph Hurricane by the man who designed it" Archived 2013-06-30 at the Wayback Machine, Craig Vetter's Official site. Retrieved 2013-05-28.