The friendship between Barry Sheene and Gary Nixon is pure legend. Everyone remembers that Sheene used to slip on a Nixon t-shirt under his leathers before a race. For Nixon, the affection was mutual. He liked and respected Sheene, which was notable given that Barry was nearly a decade younger and part of the new generation that pushed veterans like Nixon out of the sport.

That’s the way it always goes, sooner or later.

But Nixon was no ordinary rider—he was already a racing folk hero, a hard-bitten champion with the scars and the stories to prove it. Sheene idolized him, and until his death, treated Nixon like family. Their escapades together? Most were the kind of stories that will never make it into polite print. Rolls Royces, women, rock and roll—the phrase “Nixon and Sheene” sums it all up. Together they lived louder, faster, and funnier than most people can even imagine.

When Nixon passed in 2011, his family gave friend Mike Skonseller what might be the crown jewel of Nixon/Sheene memorabilia.

It’s a signed poster from a French clothing campaign that Sheene starred in during the 1970s—the decade when denim was painted on tight.

Sheene’s inscription to Nixon is warm and unmistakably Barry. He calls him by his private nickname, “Niccers,” and reminds him he was one of a kind. Then, true to form, Sheene adds a cheeky postscript: the model posing beneath him in the photo, he notes, is “checking out his inside leg.”

That was Nixon and Sheene. A pairing equal parts mischief, mayhem, and myth. Enough said.