This motorcycle maker has a powerful vision for his company. And he's dragging his supporters along -- whether they like it or not.
To get to Confederate Motorcycles Inc., you'd better know where you're going. Head north off I-12 onto Louisiana Route 59, which turns into a ribbon of blacktop cut through palmetto thickets and cypress swamps. At Abita Springs the road takes a hard turn, rattles over train tracks, and fades into a county road that runs past tin-roofed houses. Under the brooding presence of live oaks and Spanish moss, it's easy to miss the dirt road leading to the plant. There's no sign along the road, nor is there one on the bunker of a building swathed in midday heat.
Enter through a chairless lobby and proceed down a dank hallway -- stained carpet, scuffed walls -- to the factory floor. There, Confederate suddenly comes to life with a yammer and a hiss, the clang of metal being shaped by men whose grease- and nicotine-stained hands are both rough and knowing. Something unexpected catches the eye: a finished motorcycle, metal gleaming, redolent of new leather, its gas tank a flawless, heaven-sent silver.
At its best, a motorcycle can promise transcendence, and this bike whispers of that. A tag on the handlebars announces its next stop: Istanbul, Turkey.
How does a product built in an obscure factory deep in the bayou find a buyer in a place so far away? Such is the allure of a $30,000 hand-built motorcycle. A lot of people want this machine. But it's also a high-risk product, in sync with the nature of the business. The country is crowded with wanna-be motorcycle makers, but the market is dominated by a corporation so embedded in the national psyche that customers tattoo its logo all over their bodies.
Any start-up carries risk, and this one is no different. But that means little once you meet Confederate's founder. With the bullheadedness you'd expect from a former litigator, Mat Chambers insists on running his business his way -- right down to the contentious name on the gas tank -- no matter what his suppliers, his distributors, or even his customers think. And that only raises the ante on what is already a redline start-up.
The man
To hear Chambers tell it, it's a wonder that the world has survived without the Confederate motorcycle. "This needed to be done," he says. "The market has been crying out for a motorcycle with world-class chassis dynamics like this." Translation: it's a great bike.
Chambers, who bought his first motorcycle at age 13, describes himself as "one of those weirdos who was always searching. I was dying to find out what I was supposed to do with my life." The quest led him through stints in oil and gas exploration, trucking, and restaurants -- as well as commercial real estate, where he managed to lose $1 million on one bad deal. He even took his search to the people, running for the Louisiana state legislature in 1982. But they pointed him in another direction.
Somewhere along the way Chambers made it to law school and built a respectable Baton Rouge practice that was netting him a princely six-figure income. But the money didn't end his search. What would was something that would allow him to play at the top of his game. "I'm a classic mad scientist, a dreamer," Chambers says. "I didn't feel that what I was doing as a lawyer was groundbreaking and revolutionary."
Fate rescued Chambers 10 years ago, when he took on a personal-injury case. "My client was just a good old Louisiana boy who liked to drink a little beer and eat barbecue," Chambers recalls. In a dustup at a local bar one night, the bartender roughed up the good old boy and threw him into his pickup. While he was on his way home the police stopped him, roughed him up some more, and threw him into a jail cell. By dawn he was in bad shape -- paralyzed from his injuries.
Chambers took that story to a judge in 1990. The judge came back with an $8.8-million award, later reduced to $3 million. Chambers's contingency fee came to half a million. Finally he saw daylight. He sold out to his partner and three days later started Confederate, capitalized to the tune of $1 million.
Tim Hood, a Baton Rouge restaurateur, was one of the early investors who helped Chambers get Confederate off the ground. He remembers first meeting Chambers at a coffee shop across from his restaurant. "He was there with his sketches, plans, and dreams. I was kind of swept up by it all. He strikes a chord with people like me," Hood says.
In the early years Chambers and five employees worked in a 6,000-square-foot space in Baton Rouge, where, over four years and 200,000 miles, they developed prototypes. "We rode the bikes, took them apart, put them back together, and rode them some more," says Chambers. They spent an entire six months welding the first frame, ultimately creating a design that was patented with 20 claims.
A Confederate produces 30% more horsepower than a Harley-Davidson and weighs a third less. "It's incredible the way it puts the power to the ground," marvels Don Pfeffer, a Confederate customer who has raced motorcycles for 30 years. He bought his Confederate after one test ride and without even asking the price. (Confederates range from $24,000 to $31,000.) "For the performance and engineering you get, it's a steal. It's head and shoulders above the rest," says Pfeffer.
Confederate Motorcycles Inc. may have been born from passion, yet passion can burn away profit. Cham- bers created Confederate with no business plan or management team. The financing came largely out of his back pocket, and whenever money grew tight Chambers would sell a few bikes. "Mat's done everything backwards," says Ed Reardon, a stockbroker and consultant to the company.
And then, of course, there is the ornery issue of that name. Would Chambers ever reconsider it? "No, never," he replies unblinkingly. And that leaves one to wonder if the biggest risk factor for this company is inside the founder's head.
