'Choppers' Teutul Family Tells All

Custom motorcycle maker Paul Teutul Sr. has a street-sweeper mustache, oaken arms sheathed in tattoos and a booming voice.

Before he sobered up, the one-time iron worker was an admitted "garbage head" who popped speed like candy and chugged cough syrup, a scary boozer who would down a dozen shots of whiskey in 10 minutes.

But here's the other thing about "Senior," as he's known on a popular Discovery Channel reality series: Kids love him.

"They love my father because he looks like such a cartoon character. So unreal," Mikey Teutul writes in a new book titled, "Orange County Choppers: The Tale of the Teutuls."

The book - co-authored by Mikey, Paul Sr. and Paulie Teutul, with Keith and Kent Zimmerman - is about a family of Montgomery, N.Y., bike builders who became famous through the show, "American Chopper."

Like the series, the book focuses as much on hand-crafted motorcycles as it does on the family's funny, antagonistic and loving relationships. Each chapter is told by a different Teutul (pronounced "Tuttle"), along with Orange County Choppers bike makers Vinnie DiMartino and Rick Petko.

The story begins with Paul Sr.'s rough childhood in Yonkers, N.Y. His mother was an alcoholic, his father a workaholic, and both, Teutul writes, beat him regularly.

"I'd be sitting there, struggling through my homework, crying after getting smacked, my lip bleeding. Then if I got hit when I didn't deserve it, my father, rather than saying he was sorry, would yell, 'That's one for next time!' "

With no prospects or aspirations, Teutul, now 57, did a stint in the Merchant Marine and returned home to New York. His first bike was a used 1971 Triumph. Later, after launching an ironworks business with a partner in the area of Newburgh, N.Y., Teutul bought his first Harley and started customizing and building bikes.

But before he could excel as a motorcycle maker, Teutul had to cork his phenomenal saucing. He writes, "I might sit down and drink a quart of whiskey for lunch, go back to work ... drink another quart of whiskey, then drive home. And I did that constantly."

Teutul's wife and the mother of their four children split from him in the mid-1980s, and he eventually found sobriety. His eldest child, Paulie, was born in 1974 and had to endure his father's boozing years. But Paulie also grew up watching his father and handing him wrenches. The younger Teutul found he had a knack for bike design, and he and his father started building choppers in their basement.

Their bikes caught the eyes of motorcycle magazine editors and then a Discovery Channel producer who was seeking to boost the channel's gearhead offerings. The show debuted in 2002, with a focus not only on making high-end choppers, but also on the fiery, door-slamming relationship between Paul Sr. and Paulie.

Both men winced at the first episode and felt they had been betrayed. They were designers and craftsmen, and yet the show wasn't centered on that. They were made to look, Paul Sr. wrote, like jackasses.

"I called (producer Craig Piligian) early the next morning, before the overnight ratings came out," he wrote. "I cleaned his clock on the phone. 'You've ruined my life,' I screamed, 'and my career. I didn't expect this.'

"It was the same scream they had liberally inserted through the show," he continued. "Only angrier. I told him I was going to hop on a plane, drive out to his studio, and give him the beatin' of his life."

But Piligian calmed Senior, telling him to wait for the ratings.

The show was an immediate hit. Viewers loved the father-son drama, and the Teutuls came to accept that their relationship would be on full display. The show and shop took off together, and the OCC crew became known throughout the world.

Besides Senior and Paulie, the show's other main star is younger son Mikey Teutul, a smart and funny slacker who wanders through the shop in his trademark shorts providing comic relief. Mikey says his father is not hard to figure out.

"He likes things consistent. He likes it when people are punctual," Mikey Teutul wrote. "He admires people who are assertive. He prefers a person with a sense of humor who can take a joke and has a thick skin.

"Anybody with those character traits will go a long way with my father."