If there was a public last gasp of publicity for Evel Knievel it came in the form of the 1977 movie Viva Knievel. The fictional action plot put the motorcycle jumping daredevil in the middle of a drug smuggling plot and it had people like Leslie Nielsen, Lauren Hutton, and Gene Kelley in it. People like Frank Gifford also made appearances throughout the movie. While it was designed to continue the hype machine around Knievel which had been roaring for the majority of the 1970s, the film fell flat for several reasons. The biggest?

A few months before the release of the movie, Knievel had greeted a guy named Shelly Saltman with an aluminum baseball bat and beaten him to a pulp, breaking his arm. The reason? Saltman had written a gritty, unflinching, (and what Evel perceived to be damaging) story about the preparations and promotion of the Snake River Canyon jump which was a spectacular failure. The book Evel Knievel on Tour was not good for the all American, wholesome image of Knievel as it delved into some of the darker sides of both the daredevil business and the man’s lifestyle. All this ran counter to the “American hero” plot of the Viva Knievel film which hit the theaters in June of 1977.

Besides inspiring invalid kids to walk again, defeating drug smuggling murders, and landing the girl, there was one more impressive thing that Knievel did in the film and that was to literally jump into a mental asylum using a modified Harley-Davidson 1976 Sportster XLCH 1000  motorcycle known as the Stratocycle. That’s what’s for sale in this eBay at and the opening bid is $200,000.

This is the actual bike used in the movie and the one that was actually ridden by Knievel. It has the awesome American flag/bald eagle style paint job, the weirdo fairing with winglets and what look to be rocket boosters sticking out of the back, and all kinds of documentation backing up the fact that it is legit.

The bike was replicated by Ideal Toys and we have read in multiple places where the Stratocycle is one of the most valuable of all the Evel Knievel collectible toys. We’re guessing that the sales of the thing were limited due to the fading popularity of Knievel and the fact that parents weren’t too into the idea of buying a toy that promoted a man who was jailed for beating someone with a baseball bat.

Either way and ugliness aside, this is a cool and well documented piece of Evel Knievel lore that you could own…if you have a quarter million plus to start bidding.

SEE SOME PHOTOS AND THEN HIT THE EBAY LINK FOR THE WHOLE LISTING –

CLICK HERE FOR THE EVEL KNIEVEL STRATOCYCLE LISTING