Investor to kick-start American IronHorse

Scott Meyers, 64, a former defense-industry executive who looks like a long-haired, slightly graying California surfer despite a Midwest background in accounting, formally bought Fort Worth's American IronHorse Motorcycles on Wednesday.

He signed a lease with a city-backed development corporation for half the space the company formerly occupied on Blue Mound Road.

Meyers had won IronHorse in a bankruptcy-court auction with a $6.7 million bid -- putting in $500,000 of his own money and borrowing the rest from Textron Financial, the commercial lending arm of Textron Corp., which already has taken a red-ink bath as the main creditor to the high-end, ill-fated custom bike maker.

The Chicago-reared investor says he's personally ponying up an additional $2 million for re-startup costs and plans on maintaining a hands-on role.

Once he gets new agreements in place with dealers, Meyers hopes to reduce the inventory of some 1,300 bikes -- 800 with dealers, 180 with IronHorse and about 250 repos held by Textron -- before restarting production.Nonetheless, he plans to show prototypes of IronHorse's 2009 Texas Chopper and Slammer models in August at the annual biker gathering in Sturgis, S.D.

Meyers also said he's making good on a promise to cover rent never paid by the predecessor entity to the Fort Worth Local Development Corp. Along with property taxes paid by the landlord, that amounts to about $366,000. A lease on 110,000 square feet, down from 224,000, was signed Wednesday at what was once a Fruehauf truck-trailer plant.

Not among the eight remaining employees is R.B. "Buck" Hendrickson, who up until this week was chief executive. A turnaround specialist with much automotive-industry experience, Hendrickson said he is considering several employment options.

Meyers, who was the designated stalking-horse whose bid set the auction's floor price, beat out MD Helicopters owner Lynn Tilton, whose two offers were disqualified because they included assets not on the table.

Bill Rucker, IronHorse's founder who tried to make a $6.9 million offer before the auction, in the end didn't participate, saying financial commitment requirements were more than he was prepared to meet.

Unlike Tilton, the owner of Rucker Performance in Haltom City said he's not walking away fuming.

"I wish Scott and the current management the best of luck on everything they can do for the company, and will support him with whatever I can so he can be successful," he said. "The community as a whole needs IronHorse to be successful."

Online consultations

A Grapevine obstetrics practice is giving women the chance to meet with their doctors in cyberspace.

On Friday, Comprehensive Women's Healthcare plans to unveil a new service that allows patients to have "virtual office visits" instead of driving to the office at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine for a face-to-face appointment.

Patients can fill out a questionnaire online and consult with the physician from home. The service is only available for conditions that don't require a physical exam, such as urinary-tract infections, herpes outbreaks, constipation and birth control.

It's similar to online consultations that other local physicians have offered their patients in recent years.

For more information, go to www.grapevineob.com.