Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1456806
is the other side to the business that most people don't see, but it has to be done to be successful. Some mes success comes at a cost though. Preston once told my friend Ken Smith of VMX Magazine that he wouldn't do it again for a million dollars. He was referring to the stress and the me dedicated to run his business. In the beginning of Preston Pe y Products, he did not assign a name to his products. No need as there is a front and then a rear fender. So early on you will see his products s ll available with the Preston Pe y Products logo only. The first front fender he pro- duced was eventually called "Baja." Many people try to correct the spelling of the fender name "Mud- er" by changing it to Mudder. Asking Preston a few years back why it was spelled "MUDER,"his response to me was that there was not enough room for him to cast the name on the fender if he used two Ds, hence the name was MUDER. Preston modified the original Muder design which was a radiused fend- er, and created another neat idea, the IB Muder. IB stood for "integral bracket," and these fenders bolted directly to the underside of the triple clamp. Where as before you would need a fender bracket to mount the front fender. Preston did find me every now and then to par- take in another of his loves, flying. There were three twin-engine airplanes. The first twin was a Navajo that they purchased in Oregon. Mary said it was the coldest airplane she ever flew on. Mary said there was no way to make it warm in the cockpit area, but they roasted in the back. The second plane, a Cess- na, was a single-engine that Preston owned when his wife-to-be Mary met him in 1972. They traded the Cessna for a Turbo Commander, the around-the- world airplane. A er that they moved to Sco sdale, AZ. and traded down to a Shrike Commander, also a twin engine plane. On one trip that Preston flew with Mary, he was to meet a poten al manufacturer in Taiwan. Mary tells me this funny story: "It was well before the ar- round-the-world trip. We were there to meet with a manufacturer to discuss the produc on of parts for the headlight number plate, not the grips. The owner of the company repeatedly said "Preston Pe y," trying to recall why he knew the name. He le the mee ng only to return with grips that were iden cal to our Hex Grip in design, right down to the name molded into the grip. They were as hard as a brick. When Preston pointed out that he had the patent on the design, and that they shouldn't be manufacturing them, it was disclosed that they were making them for someone in Australia. Need- less to say, the nice man was a li le embarrassed. We never did do any business with that company." A few years later Preston le for the around-the- world flight in his Turbo Commander twin-engine. Mary was with him for the first two weeks but needed to leave to a end to issues back at the plant in Newburg. Preston con nued to travel around the world alone.