is quoted as saying, ‘The first one to call me Evil Knievel was Nig McGrath, a friend of the family. My brother Nick and I stole his hubcaps and he hollered “You’re just a little evil Knievel.” It sort of stuck…even though I was somewhat ashamed of the name.’ (Although later in the very same book there are claims that the nickname was started by a neighbour and/or the local police due to Knievel’s bike-riding antics.) The name McGrath turned up again in Penthouse magazine but under different circumstances when Evel explained, ‘The guy that actually named me “Evil” was Nick McGrath, a baseball umpire. Every time I’d come up, even in Little League, he’d call me “Evil Knievel”.’ Whether this Nig McGrath and Nick McGrath are one and the same person (their names are repeated here as they were spelled in the respective publications) is open to debate, but the salient point is that Knievel was claiming to have been nicknamed ‘Evil’ from a young age.
One aspect of the famous name which Knievel did not contradict in his explanations was the changing of the spelling from ‘Evil’ to the less demonic ‘Evel’. He always claimed that he didn’t want any young fans to think he was a truly bad man or an evil man, or, as he once wittily suggested, ‘I didn’t like it [the spelling] the other way. It was an unnecessary evil.’ Although the change in spelling does not affect the sound of the word, it does neatly mimic the spelling of his surname, adding to the sense of alliteration, and there’s never been any harm in a self-publicist having his very own unique name to market – and eventually copyright.
However long he may have had the nickname of ‘Evil’, Bobby was never actually officially billed as ‘Evel’ in any of his shows until 1966, the year after he started performing motorcycle stunts and several years after he’d started dirt-track racing, where the name, one presumes, would have been equally beneficial in attracting attention. Indeed, another version of how he got his name relates to his time as a bike racer, as Knievel explained in the BBC documentary Touch of Evel : ‘I put together a stunt group called Bob Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils, Hollywood, California. My sponsor [Bob Blair of the Berliner Motor Co. who supplied Knievel’s team with bikes] said, “The nickname you have at the racetracks is Evil Knievel, why don’t you use it? It’s a better name.” So anyway, I did. I wasn’t too sure about it because I was ashamed of being called Evil.’
So it was that on 23 January 1966 the newly christened Evel Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils made their public debut in the grounds of Indio’s National Date Festival, where the team performed a selection of stunts, some original and some borrowed and adapted from car stunt-shows. It would presumably not have been known to Knievel that there had been a troupe of riders performing similar stunts in Britain for years. The Royal Signals Display Team – The White Helmets – was formed in 1927 as a means of demonstrating the skills of its Army dispatch riders, and their repertoire included jumping through hoops of fire, fast crossovers (where two riders race towards each other narrowly avoiding a collision) and six-bike pyramids. But while Knievel’s daredevils were not an entirely new conception, they were new to American audiences and their presentation was certainly a far cry from the officious military performances of The White Helmets.
Knievel often claims to have used 750cc Norton Commandos in these early jumps, but this must be the result of an inaccurate memory. The first Commando was not released until 1967, and since Knievel started jumping a Norton in 1966 he obviously could not have been mounted on a Commando. Early pictures of Evel’s stunt-shows clearly demonstrate him riding a Norton Scrambler with ‘knobbly’ off-road tyres, but it is difficult to ascertain exactly which model due to the grainy
One aspect of the famous name which Knievel did not contradict in his explanations was the changing of the spelling from ‘Evil’ to the less demonic ‘Evel’. He always claimed that he didn’t want any young fans to think he was a truly bad man or an evil man, or, as he once wittily suggested, ‘I didn’t like it [the spelling] the other way. It was an unnecessary evil.’ Although the change in spelling does not affect the sound of the word, it does neatly mimic the spelling of his surname, adding to the sense of alliteration, and there’s never been any harm in a self-publicist having his very own unique name to market – and eventually copyright.
However long he may have had the nickname of ‘Evil’, Bobby was never actually officially billed as ‘Evel’ in any of his shows until 1966, the year after he started performing motorcycle stunts and several years after he’d started dirt-track racing, where the name, one presumes, would have been equally beneficial in attracting attention. Indeed, another version of how he got his name relates to his time as a bike racer, as Knievel explained in the BBC documentary Touch of Evel : ‘I put together a stunt group called Bob Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils, Hollywood, California. My sponsor [Bob Blair of the Berliner Motor Co. who supplied Knievel’s team with bikes] said, “The nickname you have at the racetracks is Evil Knievel, why don’t you use it? It’s a better name.” So anyway, I did. I wasn’t too sure about it because I was ashamed of being called Evil.’
So it was that on 23 January 1966 the newly christened Evel Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils made their public debut in the grounds of Indio’s National Date Festival, where the team performed a selection of stunts, some original and some borrowed and adapted from car stunt-shows. It would presumably not have been known to Knievel that there had been a troupe of riders performing similar stunts in Britain for years. The Royal Signals Display Team – The White Helmets – was formed in 1927 as a means of demonstrating the skills of its Army dispatch riders, and their repertoire included jumping through hoops of fire, fast crossovers (where two riders race towards each other narrowly avoiding a collision) and six-bike pyramids. But while Knievel’s daredevils were not an entirely new conception, they were new to American audiences and their presentation was certainly a far cry from the officious military performances of The White Helmets.
Knievel often claims to have used 750cc Norton Commandos in these early jumps, but this must be the result of an inaccurate memory. The first Commando was not released until 1967, and since Knievel started jumping a Norton in 1966 he obviously could not have been mounted on a Commando. Early pictures of Evel’s stunt-shows clearly demonstrate him riding a Norton Scrambler with ‘knobbly’ off-road tyres, but it is difficult to ascertain exactly which model due to the grainy
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