Bill Walters Leathers — The Burbank Leathermaker Motocross and BMX Racers Both Trusted (1972 to the Mid-1980s)

A BMXRacingHistory.com preview · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Before BMX had its own gear industry, kids racing dirt bikes at Ascot and kids racing bicycles at the Pit were often wearing the same brand of leathers, just cut differently. Bill Walters Leathers started as a motorcycle racing-leathers shop in Burbank, California, building padded pants and jerseys for motocross riders years before BMX existed as an organized sport. When BMX grew big enough to need its own gear, Walters cut a BMX-specific line without changing the name over the door. This is what the period record actually shows about the shop and the man whose name was on every pair.

A Burbank leathermaker, 1972

The earliest dated reference found for the business is a classified ad in Cycle News, May 30, 1972, listing "Bill Walters Leathers, 612A S. Victory Blvd., Burbank, California." By 1973 the shop was advertising a body belt and a padded motocross pant with plastic kneecups and a nylon lining in Dirt Bike magazine, and by March 1975 it had moved a short distance within the same Burbank corridor, to 445 South Victory Blvd. A 1974 Motocross Action ad carries the self-branded quality claim the shop was known for: "Every pair of Bill Walters Leathers must be passed by the world's toughest inspector: Bill Walters." By 1976, a Motocross Action gear price chart lists Bill Walters leathers alongside competitor Koho leathers at $89.95, and by 1978 the shop appears as a contingency sponsor in the Women's Motocross Nationals event program — evidence it had a real place in the sport's gear economy, not just a mail-order sideline.

Beyond his own ad copy, no biography of Bill Walters the man has surfaced — no birth year, no account of how he learned leatherwork, no record of whether he ran the shop alone or with staff. A bmxsociety.com forum thread from around April 2007, titled "Bill Walters interview — ask away," suggests a community member had located him in Maui, Hawaii that year and was gathering questions for an interview. The thread's actual content could not be opened or verified for this page — it's noted here as an open lead, not a confirmed fact.

Getting into BMX, 1978 to 1982

By 1978, the shop's address in period BMX advertising was 7359 Varna Avenue, North Hollywood, California, phone (213) 982-3738 — a move from the earlier Burbank location, and the address that ran through the peak of its BMX-era visibility. The custom pants and jerseys line appears repeatedly in BMX Action and BMX Plus! between 1978 and 1982: inside bike-test articles (a June 1978 Cook Bros. test and a July 1981 Mongoose Supergoose test both credit "Bill Walters Leathers, custom pants and jerseys" as part of the featured rider's kit), in standalone display ads offering a catalog and stickers for a dollar, and in factory-team sponsor-patch listings run alongside brands like Oakley, Premier, and Bel-Ray.

One ad, from the August 1979 BMX Action, names a factory team as "Equipped By: BW Peed, Bill Walters Leathers, ISE Helmets" — team-level sponsor credit rather than an individual rider endorsement. Resale listings for vintage gear reference a "Kuwahara Factory Team Leathers by Bill Walters" line, which would tie the shop to Kuwahara's factory program, but that detail comes from present-day marketplace listings rather than period magazine coverage, so it's presented here as a plausible but unconfirmed connection.

Riders and teams — an honest gap

It would be easy to write that the top BMX factory riders of the era wore Bill Walters leathers, and something close to that claim shows up informally in collector discussion online. What's actually documented is narrower: sponsor-block advertising naming the shop alongside other equipment brands, and bike-test captions crediting the leathers as part of a featured rider's gear, without naming that rider as a Bill Walters sponsee specifically. No single BMX champion's endorsement of the brand could be confirmed in a period magazine profile or interview for this page. The honest version is that Bill Walters Leathers was a recurring, visible equipment sponsor across multiple BMX factory programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s — real presence in the sport's gear economy, without a marquee rider's name attached to it in the record.

What happened to it

No closure date, sale, or successor brand has been found. The last dated reference located for this page is a BMXmuseum.com forum recollection of buying a pair of size-36 Bill Walters BMX leathers around 1984. Only original vintage pieces circulate today, through eBay, Etsy, and similar resale channels — there is no modern production, license, or revival. The present-day leather goods company Bill Wall Leather Inc., founded in 1985, is a different business entirely, founded by a different person; the similar name is coincidental as far as this research could determine.

Where the record runs thin

• Bill Walters the person. No biography, birth year, or account of his background in leatherwork has been located — only his own advertising voice across more than a decade of print ads.
• The 2007 Maui interview. A bmxsociety.com thread title suggests he was tracked down and interviewed around 2007, but the thread's content could not be verified for this page. Worth a follow-up if the forum becomes accessible.
• Named rider endorsements. Sponsor-block and team-equipment credits are documented; no individual BMX champion's personal endorsement of the brand was found in period press.
• The Kuwahara factory-team leathers line. Referenced in present-day resale listings, not in a period magazine ad located for this page.
• A claim that CYC's early team wore Bill Walters leathers through 1978. This appears on a collector history blog (cycbmx.wordpress.com) but is not corroborated by any period magazine ad found for either brand — noted here as an unverified secondary claim, not fact.
• Exact closure date. Best estimate is the mid-1980s, following the last dated product reference of around 1984 — no primary source states an exact end date.

Sources

oldschoolmags.com — BMX Action bike tests and ads carrying Bill Walters Leathers credits and display advertising: June 1978 (Cook Bros. test), August 1979, September 1979, October 1979, July 1981 (Mongoose Supergoose test), March 1980, July 1982 (sponsor-patch listing), November 1982 (Huffy Pro Lightning test); BMX Plus!, June 1981. bmxsociety.com — "Bill Walters interview — ask away" thread (c. April 2007) and a thread referencing an October 1979 BMX Plus! ad; both located by search but could not be opened directly for this page, so their content is not cited as fact. Cycle News, May 30, 1972; Dirt Bike, July 1973 and March 1975; Motocross Action, July 1974 and March 1976; the 1978 Women's Motocross Nationals event program — motocross-era trade press establishing the shop's founding period and location, archived at themotocrossvault.com, retrorepos.com, and womensmxhistory.com. BMXmuseum.com — forum recollection dating a BMX leathers purchase to around 1984.

Related Legend Bike Co. chapters

• Kuwahara — the factory program a resale-listing claim ties to a Bill Walters leathers line, unconfirmed in period press
• BMX Action Magazine — where most of the period ads and bike-test credits cited above were originally published
• BMX Plus! Magazine — additional period advertising placement
• The History of BMX — the whole story, start to finish