Bobby Haas Launches New Motorcycle Museum

Bobby Haas (ES ’69) opened a new chapter in his life when he turned 64.  He didn’t hum along with Ringo’s When I’m 64; rather, he started riding motorcycles for the first time and then, three years later at the age of 67, he began collecting vintage and one-of-a-kind motorcycles.

Now 4 years later, he’s collected over 160 motorcycles and created a nationally renowned museum to present them to visitors at the Dallas location.

Not only does The Haas Moto Museum & Sculpture Gallery immerse you in the evolution of motorcycles from 1901 to the present day, it unveils an unparalleled collection of 25 one-of-a-kind cycles, many made for pure artistic exploration of the technology’s limits.  It also hosts dozens of custom sculptures, including found-metal, scale-model motorcycles, collectively representing a broad range of design approaches.

The collection includes the rarest of vintage cycles and award-winning custom cycles.  Let’s let six of them speak for the others, and pick up Bobby’s story after that:

There’s a lot more see here and at The Haas Moto Museum & Sculpture Gallery.  Check it out.

This is not Bobby’s first “new career.”  After a fabulously successful career as an investment banker — business schools still teach Bobby’s turnaround of Dr. Pepper and Seven-Up as “cases” — Bobby taught himself photography and developed a technique of shooting wildlife and the most remote places on Earth while leaning out of open helicopters, producing truly stunning photos.  Five of his books of photos were published by National Geographic, and two are among the most widely distributed, single-photographer books in the storied 130-year history of National Geographic.

National Geographic’s website has a whole page dedicated to Bobby and his work — and it’s worth reading. If you want to see some of the most popular images,  click here.  The Yale Alumni Magazine also ran an article on Bobby’s photos, here.

Throughout his renaissance-man career(s), Bobby has also been a generous, mostly unsung, philanthropist … supporting a broad variety of causes, including Yale.  See the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, as an example.