Film, TV & Animation

Hundreds of fans of an American cult television programme about chopper motorbikes descended on Hemsby, near Great Yarmouth, to meet the stars of the show.

The three heroes of American Chopper took a break from filming in Germany to make a flying visit to the UK to help celebrate the first birthday of a merchandise shop in the tiny seaside village where all their European merchandise is produced.

One of the trio, Paul Teutul, explained how they'd started out making their distinctive chopper bikes out of spare pieces of metal from their family steel business home in New York State nine years ago.

Worldwide TV hit

Their specially-designed models for advertising promotions led the Discovery Channel to approach them to star in a TV series which has become a massive hit in the States and on satellite and cable around the world.

The Chopper stars pulled a massive crowd

Fans started to queue from four in the morning of Friday, 18 April, 2008 to meet Paul, brother Mikey and their father, also called Paul.

They flew into Norwich Airport by private jet and then drove on to Hemsby where they were greeted with cheering crowds and a bitterly cold east wind.

"It's a little chilly," said Paul, "it's 80 degrees in New York and we expected it to be the same but I guess it's not so."

Official merchandiser

The Basic Box business was set up in Hemsby by Karl Hickey to produce clothing for brands and was able to acquire the licence to produce the Orange County Choppers merchandise.

Karl said: "Fans just love the show and want the T-shirts, sweaters, caps and boots their heroes wear in the show."

Fan Sue Godden drove 200 miles from Brighton to meet the stars and said the show's appeal went beyond the bikes.

"It's amazing," she said. "It's the whole family dynamics of the American Choppers and we just love the programme. We're having a fantastic time."

Paul Holmes, an illustrator from Lingwood, turned out with his son, Jack.

Hundreds of fans turned out

He said: "The show's a real fly-on-the-wall documentary type of show which really shows the bikes being built from scratch from designs and it shows their home life as well.

"To see the bikes being literally built from scratch and bare metal and then see them in the flesh is a great thing."

A biker's inspiration

Norwich solicitor Simon Nichols took his cue from the show and travelled down to Hemsby on his Harley Davidson.

"It was a moment of rash stupidity but it was colder in the queue than it was on the bike," he said.

But despite the biting wind, he thought his journey to see the TV stars was worth it.

Simon said: "It was awesome to actually see them. The usual thing they say about film stars is they are smaller in the flesh - and they are smaller than I thought they would be!"