Perhaps you know Milo Ventimiglia from his role as one of TV’s greatest dads, Jack Pearson, in the Emmy Award-winning series “This is Us” or as teenage heartthrob Jess Mariano in “Gilmore Girls.” Maybe you recognize him as hospice nurse Peter Petrelli in “Heroes,” con man Charlie Nicoletti in “The Company You Keep” or Formula One race car driver Denny in the film “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”
His many acclaimed acting roles aside, though, at heart Milo Ventimiglia is a gearhead. “I’ve always been interested in beautiful machines that move fast,” he admits. “When I was a kid, I’d always watch the Barrett-Jackson auction with my dad. It would be one of those things where, when it was on a Saturday, we would turn it on and just WATCH. My dad and I were always kind of gearheads and into that stuff.”
Ventimiglia purchased his first (and only) classic car when he was just 22 – a 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport in Tuxedo Black with a black interior – and had it completely frame-on restored. “I still have it,” he says. “Evelyn. She’s in storage right now as I go through a home remodel, but she had been, for the longest time, my longest-lasting relationship!” Ventimiglia’s wife, model Jarah Mariano, whom he married in 2023, now occupies first place in his heart, but he still considers that Chevelle his “dream car” – it even had a cameo role in the last episode of the first season of “This is Us.”
Ventimiglia wasn’t introduced to motorcycles until he was in his late 20s, when he was on the “American Dreams” TV series. The last episode called for him to put actress Brittany Snow on the back of a bike and ride off, but as he’d never ridden a motorcycle, the producers put him through motorcycle training and certification. He was hooked – much to the dismay of his family and friends, who were concerned for his safety.
He decided to hire an instructor who had done safety certifications for California Highway Patrol officers to give him private lessons, and just six months into that training, he bought his first bike: a Harley-Davidson Forty-Eight. “I hid it from my family and friends for about two years,” he remembers. Eventually, though, the cat was out of the bag. “Once it became family knowledge that I had a motorcycle, my garage grew,” Ventimiglia relates. “I went from that first Harley-Davidson Forty-Eight to a Fat Bob to a Low Rider S to a Road Glide Special.”
His passion was such that he began to look for acting work that incorporated motorcycles, which brings us to two very special bikes that will be selling with No Reserve at the 2025 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction, January 18-26 at WestWorld.
The first is a right-side-shift 1967 Triumph Bonneville that Ventimiglia purchased from the original owner. “For a project I had to shoot just ahead of the pandemic,” he relates, “I was going to be on bikes from the ’60s, and specifically the type of bike that motorcycle legend Evel Knievel was riding.” In an effort to keep things as authentic as possible, all the bikes used on the “Evel” TV series (which sadly never came to fruition due to the pandemic) were right-side shifters. “Because I couldn’t practice on those picture bikes,” says Ventimiglia, “I bought this ’67 Bonneville. I not only had to learn how to right-side shift and be comfortable with it in an instinctual way, I had to learn how to do wheelies on it.”
The second bike Ventimiglia is bringing to the Scottsdale Auction is his 1170cc 2021 BMW R nineT, which his character – con man Charlie Nicoletti – rode in the ABC television series “The Company You Keep.”
“Being a Harley guy, the reason I went BMW was purely character,” admits Ventimiglia. “I get very into the work that I do on screen. I did not see Charlie on a Harley.” Deciding that the R nineT was the look that he wanted for the character, he went and bought the bike himself and made some modifications to it – including Oberon bar end mirrors, a Daedalus fender eliminator, and Rizoma low-profile front signals and exhaust. He then just brought it on set and said, “This is my motorcycle.”
Why BMW? “Very simply, it’s the ultimate driving machine,” says Ventimiglia. “BMW and the German tuning and the way that they approach building cars and motorbikes is just impeccable. And they are precision machines that are dependable. It’s just a wonderful ride. Very powerful, very agile – and, for me, that kind of matched who Charlie Nicoletti was.”
For a chance to own one – or both – of Milo Ventimiglia’s motorcycles, each with its own fascinating Hollywood provenance, register to bid today.
This article was originally published on Barrett-Jackson.com.
Source: www.classiccars.com