I woke up this morning with the head of my girlfriend’s dog (I called it the rat dog, it was so small), pinned to the pillow beside my head with a note. Remember last summer, Mofo, the Saxon ride to the desert. You need to write an article about they’re factory or die trying. Oh, what’s with your ol’ lady’s dog? Didn’t put up much of a fight.—X

It took me months to get over the peyote buttons the girls at Rocky Point slipped into my cheap tequila shots. I thought for sure they wanted desperately for me to forget that weekend. I didn’t know whether to pack my shit and run or celebrate the death of that fuckin’ rat she called a dog.

It started to come back to me. It reminded me of a dusty berg on the outskirts of Vegas, in the desert, where you take people to bury them in shallow graves. I remember looking around and wondering, at the time, if that was my fate. The decrepit town was filtering back into my memory. I remembered one Spanish mission, a faded Foster’s Freeze and a bar. Then on the outskirts of town we came across a residential area that reminded me of something out of one of those dust bowl, depression era movies. No pavement streets, straddled with tents and plywood shanties, thin emasculated women wore tattered, faded threads carrying buckets of water from one stone well.

Just beyond the nasty smell of open privies stood the massive block encased Saxon Assembly Plant, except it looked like a federal prison facility surrounded by hot wired 15-foot chain-link fencing laced with barbed wire and topped with rolls of jagged concentration camp concertina wire.

I tried to remember whether there were armed guard posts at the corners? I think the peyote kicked in as we pulled up to the gates and David Schwam, the Marketing director jumped out of the jet black, Saxon Humvee, screaming at starving, sullen women begging at the gates. From nowhere he snatched a leather riding crop and began to lash at them in a madman’s rage. “Get these bitches away from the gates,” He snarled whipping their frail sun burnt backs. “I told the manager we were bringing the press.”

I attempted not to stare. The women weren’t pleading for food, although they needed it bad. They were begging for the return of their men. I didn’t get it. They looked as though they had taken up housekeeping outside the vast iron gates. Our entourage crept past the weeping damsels into the guarded Saxon Fortress.

I half expected to find a line of small Chinese men lashed together with chains, building Saxon motorcycles. Was it the Peyote or the strange smoke I had with breakfast that was making me paranoid and vividly imaginary. The Saxon partners immediately led us into a lavish conference room and disappeared. I had the munchies and dove into the donut buffet, steaming java and juices. The smoke induced paranoia that seemed prevalent among this array of motojournalists seemed to suddenly diminish and I noticed a giggling banter pick-up between the editors and writers. I looked at the sugarcoated donuts and wondered, then I noticed a mist filtering from the air-conditioning vents. Suddenly I was laughing with the rest of them and life seemed immersed in joy. The Saxon team returned to give us a full tour of their new facility.

The Saxon partners bought the 65,000 square foot building and rebuilt every element from the wiring to the office interiors, roofing and insulation to avoid the strident Arizona desert temps. I suddenly felt comfortable and lucid as if I had snorted brain Drano laced with Valium. I couldn’t find the Chinese laundry with forced labor. The facility was clean and open as if a bunch of partners working together to build bikes in ideal surroundings. Even the offices were open with windows facing the small assembly line in the middle of the vast concrete industrial building. It was as if the master builders worked and could signal to the plant manager, or the supply clerk for help, questions or ordering concerns.

Saxon kicked off their bike building process, a year ago, with two man teams in cells building bikes. Each team built a bike from start to finish and they produced eight bikes a week. Saxon bikes began to sell and the crew sensed a need for elevated numbers. The Saxon partners hired John Bishopp, with a vast 17-year background in the auto industry. John grew up in engineering, program management, to become a product line director and ultimately the director of operations for an automotive plant.

I got the impression he was imprisoned aboard a container ship and forced into the Table Top Wilderness to build motorcycles. I shook my head and snorted another line of powder off my donut. I’ve been to the Harley-Davidson factory. I’ve seen automobile assembly operations and this was a miniature by comparison, but it was cool, like a close family operation or Santa’s Elves making toys. That’s a tough one to swallow, but imagine if you had to set up a system to build all your brothers tight, fast choppers. Imagine the perfect scenario—that’s the Saxon Plant.

“We started the assembly line with the bike building tables,” John said. “We added wheels and a small track and we were underway.”

The track, tables and tools are arranged in the center of this industrial building and surround by sub-departments that work to feed the line complete assemblies and components to make the line assembly operation as efficient and assembly-friendly as possible. It’s the same crew who started in the Saxon build teams.

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