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Orange County Choppers (OCC) is a custom motorcycle manufacturer founded by Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. in 1999. The company is featured on American Chopper, a reality TV show that debuted in September 2002 on the Discovery Channel, which has contributed to the company's quick rise to fame.Many are under the mistaken belief that the company is based in Orange County, California; rather, it's based in the county of the same name in New York. In fact in one of the episodes of American Chopper, Paul Sr. was shown getting a tattoo on his left arm with the designation OCC New York in order to clear this very point. OCC's production facility was initially located in the hamlet of Rock Tavern, but have since moved to nearby Montgomery. The company also operates a retail store nearby, at Scotts Corners.OCC started as a sideline to the family's steel manufacturing enterprise, Orange County Ironworks, which was founded in the 1970s. In the late 1990s, Teutul Sr. began manufacturing custom motorcycles as an extension of his steel business, and in 1999 he founded Orange County Choppers. The company's first bike, "True Blue", was debuted at the 1999 Daytona Biketoberfest.The popularity of American Chopper led the United States Air Force to commission a $150,000 "Raptor Bike", first put on public display in March 2005. The motorcycle is ten feet long and is modeled after the F-22 Raptor, complete with Air Force symbol rims, riveted gas tank, Raptor exhausts and rear-view mirrors in the shape of jets. Air Force recruiters commissioned it as a public outreach tool.
Staff
* Paul Teutul Sr.
Paul Teutul, Sr., (born May 1, 1949, Yonkers, New York), is the founder of Orange County Ironworks and Orange County Choppers. Teutul, who continues as owner and CEO of Orange County Choppers, works along with his sons Paul Teutul Jr. and Michael Teutul, who became celebrities when Orange County Choppers became the focus of a reality television series called American Chopper in 2002. He also has another son, Daniel who is the general manager and owner of Orange County Ironworks (Daniel is married and father of Paul's 2 grandchildren Gabrielle and Danny Boy), and a daughter Kristin, who attends nursing school in Rochester, New York. He is known to have size twelve feet and a "dodgy" eye, which is the reason that he wears sunglasses so often.
Teutul has built a reputation for being a hard-nosed businessman and having a short temper. He is often seen on the phone with a vendor or service company demanding faster results. No detail about the running of his shop can escape his eye and he has no compunction about letting his employees know when something displeases him. He is also something of a neatness freak, often shouting (at least in the earlier episodes of American Chopper) about the disorganization and cleanliness of the shop, and being described by Michael at one point as being "like Martha Stewart on a motorcycle".
In few episodes of American Chopper, Teutul has made references to past abuse of drugs and alcohol. He has stated that he was a frequent marijuana user and, according to him, "had basically done any drug around." He feels that his alcoholism influenced his two children Paul Jr. and Michael to experiment as well.
During an episode in which Mikey interviewed OCC's staff for the Web site, he asked his father, "What is your best memory?" to which Paul Sr. responded, "Becoming sober." Additionally, he has mentioned having "missed out" on most of his children's childhood.* Paul Teutul Jr.
Paul "Paulie" Teutul Jr. (born October 2, 1974) co-founded Orange County Choppers along with his father, Paul Teutul, Sr. in 1999. Teutul is chief designer and fabricator, and prior to that was head of the rail shop at Orange County Ironworks. He is also responsibile for designing the logo for OCC.
Paulie, along with his father and brother Michael Teutul, became celebrities when Orange County Choppers became the focus of a reality television series called American Chopper on the Discovery Channel in 2002. He has another brother, Daniel who is the general manager of Orange County Ironworks. He also has a sister, Kristin, attending nursing school in Rochester, New York.
While often criticized by his father (though some might claim this is largely part of the show) Paul Jr. is a skilled custom bike builder. He controls the design, color, style, and assembly during builds. Paul Jr. is also quite talented at working steel.* Michael "Mikey" Teutul
Michael "Mikey" Joseph Teutul (born November 26, 1978) is the youngest son of Paul Teutul Sr., and younger brother of Paul Teutul Jr., chief designer and fabricator at Orange County Choppers, the focus of the Discovery Channel reality television series American Chopper.
Siblings: Mikey has two older brothers Paul Michael Teutul Jr. (chief-designer at OCC) and Daniel Teutul (general manager of Orange County Ironworks) he also has a younger sister Kristin Teutul (attends nursing school in Rochester, NY)
Mikey became a celebrity when he began working for O.C.C. as a secretary and custodian (or as Mikey would gleefully say, "I answer the phone, and take out the trash."), acting as comic relief for the show. His presence also seems to have a calming effect on his father, who almost never shows the same sort of frustration he feels for Paul Jr. Mikey is often able to antagonize his father with little consequence.
He is now a major and popular part of the show and now appears at promotional events for O.C.C., as well as continuing working for the family business in his new job as a webmaster.
He is also known for his poor driving skills, as he demonstrates in the series on one occasion where he managed to drive his father's truck into a pond while showing off for a friend, and another where he again fails the practical portion of his motorcycle license exam.
* Vinnie DiMartino (Formally OCC, now of V-Force Customs)
* Rick Petko
* Jason Pohl
* Cody Connolly (Formally OCC, now of V-Force Customs)
* Nick Hansford
* Christian WelterAmerican Chopper is a Discovery Channel reality television series produced by Pilgrim Films & Television Inc., and a video game published by Activision. This popular series is based around the founder of the company, Paul Teutul Sr., and his son, Paul Teutul Jr., also known as Paulie, as the two run a business creating custom motorcycles in their workshop, Orange County Choppers. The workshop is based in Montgomery, New York. One of their most famous bikes is the Black Widow Spider Bike.The contrasting attitudes of the men and their propensity for sulking often lead to fiery but humorous verbal exchanges as they meet unusually short schedule deadlines for building distinct custom choppers.Typically Paul Jr. works alongside fabricators and mechanics such as Vinnie DiMartino, Rick Petko, Cody Connelly (a BOCES student intern who left to attend motorcycle maintenance school, but has since returned), and Christian Helter to create dozens of custom motorbikes. Paul Sr. supervises the builds and has built motorcycles himself. Michael Teutul, commonly referred to as Mikey, appears and provides comic relief, though has been seen doing metal work now and then because one of his early jobs was working at Orange County Ironworks.The show also documents their personal and promotional activities ranging from magazine photo shoots to family holidays and custom bike shows.American Chopper has been on the receiving end of criticism from more traditional Discovery Channel viewers who point out that the show has nothing to do with the channel's theme of discovery and learning as well as being a low-brow show on a relatively intellectual channel. In response to this the new commercials that advertise new seasons (including American Chopper) have had promotional messages. American Chopper's message states, "Let's all discover...the vision."
The Appeal of the showVerbal battles - These occur mainly between Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. Since the premiere of the show the two have had endless arguments, mostly related to Jr.'s working pace, which Sr. considers too slow. Paul Jr. has also been known to arrive late to work, take long lunchbreaks, and leave unexpectedly without informing anyone.Sr., however, has his own personality quirks; aside from the frustration he expresses over Jr.'s work ethic he is constantly critical of Jr.'s choices in design details, especially when a deadline for completion of a cycle is approaching. He also tends to get himself worked up over seemingly small problems (at least in Jr.'s view), most notably the cleanliness of the shop (Sr. prefers a clean shop). They also bicker about design elements, production deadlines, travel arrangements, and whose authority a design team will recognize and many, many other subjects.Mikey seems to have a problem with authority but he rarely seems to fuss on the show. He is also able to calm Sr. down.Blue collar work - The cast members are manual laborers who have become incredibly successful. The dialect they use reflects this segment of society and they have often participated in common blue-collar leisure activities together ?€“ as a group, the crew have hunted pheasant, gone snowmobiling, fished for striped bass on the Hudson River and, in one of the earliest episodes, closed the shop for a few hours to go bowling.Small business success - Although OCC itself started as a small business and was built and expanded by Paul Sr., it was not his first foray into this segment of the private sector. A few years before he started OCC he'd built a successful iron-working shop making wrought-iron fencing and other products. This business is now run by another of Sr.'s sons, Daniel. However, OCC is considered by many to be Sr.'s greater success because of the uniqueness of the cycles they build, his son's talent for original design ideas, the crew they've assembled and, of course, the television series.FANtasy Bike
During 2005, Discovery Channel ran a contest that allows each of the 4 finalists to win a OCC motorcycle, with features specified by the winner, by sending in video to express the reason of wanting a bike. The winners of the contest are (in episode order): Jeff Clegg (Corporal Punishment), Susan Morisset (female snake bike), Joseph McClendon (custom hog), Bryan King (verterbrae trike). Each winner and the bike was made into a TV episode. 2 days were allocated for building each vehicle.
