Christmas isn’t all smiles and candy canes. Sure, good ol’ St. Nick may deliver presents to good children, but the bad ones get a visit from the Krampus, a be-horned, shaggy, half-man half-goat demon who punishes the snotty little misbehavers and carts they away in his wicker basket. And if anyone in the motorcycling world deserves to be carried away by the Krampus, it’s Marcus Weller and the rest of his evildoers from Skully Helmets.
Skully came on the scene with their prototype AR-1 motorcycle helmet, a revolutionary lid that promised a heads-up display along with a load of other tech. Weller started up IndieGoGo and Kickstarter campaigns to help fund the helmet’s development, and people flocked to pony up cold hard cash -- $2.5 million raised from 1,900 investors (including a few who shelled out $24,979 apiece).
All well and good? Sure, if Skully had delivered its promised high-tech headpiece. Instead, it was all smoke and mirrors. After a former company bookkeeper sued the company, it came to light that Weller and his cronies allegedly used the funds to purchase everything from lavish personal trips to Dodge Vipers to multiple motorcycles.
May the Krampus cart off Weller and punish him appropriately for dashing the hopes of the motorcycling community for a truly functional heads-up helmet.