Press Release | August 28, 2024
The powersports industry recently lost a legend: Ken Boyko, famed for co-founding Cobra Engineering and widely known throughout the motorcycling community, in Southern California, across the country, and beyond. A memorial service in Newport Beach, California, is planned for October 19.
This is a press release from the Motorcycle Industry Council…
Boyko was a giant of the aftermarket, an innovator, and pioneer in creating a whole new category of “metric customs” based on Japanese cruiser models.
He was also a genuine enthusiast with his own wide-ranging collection of bikes, and he greatly cared about motorcycling, providing keen insights and wise counsel to help boost the industry and make it stronger.
“Ken invested his talents and time to the serious work of the MIC, and he did it in his own quiet style,” said Tim Buche, former MIC President and CEO. “He did not seek headlines or recognition, but Ken answered the MIC’s call when it launched the MIC Aftermarket Committee. He helped refine our approach and worked with his peers to increase participation. A phone call or lunch with Ken was a true master class in membership recruitment and satisfaction, with a focus on key and critical priorities. He always added a strong dose of encouragement, and a commitment to engage his many connections and channels in support of our efforts.”
“When the MIC launched the Rockefeller Motorcycle Show in New York City in 2002, Ken sent a handful of great examples from his personal collection for weeks of public display in the heart of Manhattan, which generated incredible mainstream media coverage,” Buche said. “Ken wanted to see future generations of riders enjoying the fulfillment and fun of motorcycling.”
“Ken was an industry icon, although he would deny such a statement,” said Larry Little, former MIC Chairman and Cycle World Publisher. “He was his best possible self, take it or leave it—always looking to innovate and improve the status quo, whether it was a new product or a vision for growing the industry. If you knew Ken – and it seemed there weren’t many people he didn’t know—you were among the lucky and blessed.”
More from Larry Little, former MIC Chairman and Cycle World Publisher –
When I first met Ken in the late 1970s he was working at DG Performance Specialties, a leading aftermarket motocross performance company based in Anaheim, California. His marketing and product insights helped DG become one of the top moto companies of its era. He understood the value of racing and racers, and a long list of up-and-coming racers were sponsored by the company, many of whom became lifelong friends of his, most notably Bob Hannah.
Later, Ken would go on to co-found Cobra Engineering, and in a defining moment for the industry in the early 1990s, he identified and helped create the metric cruiser market, as it is known today. No one considered Japanese cruiser motorcycles a market for Harley-like custom accessories, but Ken believed there was potential. To spur it on, he commissioned one-off custom motorcycles based on metric cruisers to showcase the company’s line of exhausts and an eventual wide-ranging assortment of bolt-on accessories for metric cruisers.
I was the publisher of Cycle World magazine at the time and we ran a story on the first bike, Cobra’s Honda Magnafied, in the June 1994 issue, and it resonated with readers. I was also serving on the MIC Board of Directors at the time, and it opened the greater industry’s eyes to the possibilities he was creating. It wasn’t long before every Japanese manufacturer was working with Ken to showcase one of their cruisers customized by Cobra, to be unveiled every year at the Dealernews trade show in February to great fanfare and media coverage.
For all of his accomplishments in industry, those of us who knew him personally were inspired by his dedication to his family and their dedication to him. As a loving husband of nearly 40 years to Laurie, he was also a proud father to Dustin and Haley, and more recently grandfather to granddaughter Collins. Family, including extended family, was everything to Ken, and he remained close to his brothers and their families as well Laurie’s family.
As a friend of many years, I can assure you Ken would offer you the shirt off his back if you needed it, and often did. As a sounding board, his honesty – frequently brutally direct – and inspiration are traits I’ll remember vividly. He had his own personal share of challenges in life, and in spite of them, he left the world a vastly better place for which I’m grateful to have shared a small slice. Godspeed, my friend.
From the Boyko Family –
Kenneth Boyko of Newport Beach, California, passed away surrounded by the love of his family on July 23rd of 2024.
Born in Youngstown, Ohio, June 27, 1951, to Walter and Mary Jane Boyko, who in 1954 packed Ken, along with his two brothers, and moved to Fontana, California, where they would add one more son. Then in 1967, they moved once again to Anaheim, California, where Ken graduated from Valencia High School in 1969.
Ken was born with a heart murmur, which led to his first open heart surgery at City of Hope at 8 years old. Afterward the doctors said there was a good chance he would not make it past his teens, but they did not know Ken, or his will to live. Over the years he stymied many a doctor’s prediction by courageously battling to overcome multiple valve replacement surgeries and ultimately becoming a heart transplant recipient in 2014. Simply stated, Ken was a warrior, one who fought and battled his whole life. With his determination, will to live, and sheer force of living and loving life, Ken was an inspiration to all who knew him.
Speaking of determination, from their first meeting, Ken pursued Laurie Heisser for years before they were finally married on October 10, 1988. Their first child, Dustin, was born on June 21, 1989, and three years later on November 18, 1992, their daughter, Haley, entered their lives. Ken and Laurie had a beautiful life together, supporting each other throughout their long love and marriage.
He was a successful marketing and entrepreneurial businessman whose ideas for new products and ways to market them to consumers helped shape the powersports industry. In 1977, he co-founded Cobra Engineering and was responsible for creating an entire new segment in the aftermarket motorcycle industry. But to Ken, his biggest success was being a loving, husband, father, and grandfather. To Ken, family was everything.
Ken is survived by his wife, Laurie Ann Boyko, his son, Dustin Wayne Boyko, his daughter, Haley Ann Boyko, and granddaughter, Collins Marie Boyko, as well as Dustin’s wife, Loren Boyko, and Haley’s husband, Nicholas Sylvester. Ken is survived by his brothers, Walter Boyko, Richard Boyko, and Teddy Boyko.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Ken’s name to the Adult Ahmanson Congenital Heart Disease Center at UCLA. It was at UCLA where he received the gift of life from a donor and treated with love by the many talented doctors and nurses over decades.
The Boyko family is planning to hold a service at Our Lady of Mount Carmel at 1441 West Balboa Boulevard in Newport Beach, California, on October 19 at 11 am. A celebration of life will follow the service, at a location to be announced.
