The Motorcycle that Saved Harley

We often think that the British

motorcycle

industry came out of nowhere and had its day in the 60s with models like the Bonnaville and TR6, but in reality it began decades earlier with

motorcycle

s like the speed twin, Thunderbird and t00 along with Of course, BSA and Norton with their big singles of the 1950s, companies like Triumph and BSA had already taken a good chunk of Harley's market share here in the states, these bikes were faster, lighter and more technologically advanced and they could be purchased for a fraction of what the big Harley twins cost across the pond.

This development of the best motorcycles in the world at this time in Britain really came out of absolute post-war necessity, but from where consumers here in America were with our post-war luxury. These were incredible motorcycles, unlike anything we had seen in our own country and we were ready to buy them. It wasn't as if Harley hadn't tried to make smaller, more affordable and economical motorcycles, the little single-cylinder Hummer filled it. Niche well enough, but there was too big a gap in their lineup between the small bikes and their big Twins and we can't overstate how dire things were getting for Harley, not just because of the British competition but also because of what was going on.

Coming from Japan, Harley had to do something different, so in 1952 Harley responded with this K model, a medium-weight V2 with a new redesigned 750 cc unit-construction engine, it had a manual clutch and a shifter. foot, was capable of over 100 mph and was successful in racing, had a completely new engine, plus had telescopic forks and holy cow rear suspension. I mean Elvis Road, this was a pretty big step in the right direction, well actually the bike still sucked compared to the competition. from overseas it still made less power and weighed much more than something like the Thunderbird and God forbid.

We compared it to something like what Vincent was doing, that's just not fair and the handling just wasn't there for the K model, it wasn't either. still a side valve engine, Harley was still about 20 years behind the British at this time, that's not to say it wasn't a success for Harley because it certainly was, but more importantly it really laid the foundation for what that would come, something much better. get into the Sportster now, you might look at the K model and this new Sportster model and think it was actually just an updated version of that bike, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Harley went back to the drawing board starting with a completely new motorcycle. new and updated overhead valve engine known as the Iron Head, not that Harley hadn't made an overhead valve engine before the e or knucklehead came out about 20 years earlier and it was overhead valve, but this would be the most The engine most advanced they had ever made to compete with the potential British. Harley needed more revs, so they increased the bore and shortened the stroke compared to their previous K engine. This also made it possible to use larger valves, all this led to more revs and more power, oddly enough they chose not to use an alloy head and instead gave it, you guessed it, an iron head.

We don't really know why, I'm sure the reason was very Harley, mainly, they probably knew it was a safe. As an option for them, they knew how to make iron heads and cylinders, and that's what they did in its 883cc form: it produced a solid 40 horsepower that was on par with the popular new Triumph TR6 Trophy, now one of the main objectives of this motorcycle. It was to make it lightweight, so a completely new frame was developed, it was more compact than Harley's larger twins, making it significantly lighter, better and more agile. Now never mind the fact that the Sportster was still about 100 lbs heavier than the weight of the TR6. anything but this bike was never going to compete with a bike like that in the desert, although the sporter was a truly modern bike from Harley, it may not be the best bike in the world, especially when it was first released, but it was certainly ready to compete with imported ones. of its era now, like the Bonville a few years later, this first generation of the Sportster, so to speak, is not really the sports motorcycle that we all think of when we think of this motorcycle because it had a lot of that old world style that was.

So the 1950s were like the first Bonville again and it was what the Sportster would become that would really make it the icon it is today. As the 1950s came to a close, it became clear that the Sportster was simply too slow as the British advanced. its twins to 650cc, so the potential of this XL engine was harnessed and compression and valve size were increased enormously on the H and CH models and it is on these models where the Sportster really stood out as a true sports bike. at a competitive price. with competitive specs and eventually the Sportster would begin to grow into its own hot rod name.

Increasing power was really the name of the game for Harley with the Sportster, they didn't really have a way to make the bike as light as the Brits know it to be. bikes, so the way to beat them was to simply make more power than them now that the first generation, so to speak, of the Sportster was styled too much like the previous K model and simply didn't match its own improved performance and therefore The iconic, stripped-down XLC would pave the way not only for the Sportster in terms of performance but also in terms of styling going forward, even though the initial XLCH wasn't even road legal in its initial form.

The parallels between what Harley and Triumph did. with their standout motorcycles from this era, they are so interesting that the Bonville was initially too old school so the stripped down TR6 styling would essentially take over and become the styling of the Bonville and the same goes for the Sportster, the styling Initially it was too big and curvy and just old world 50s, so the stripped down almost Scrambler like xlch would become a sort of standard style for the Sportster in 1962 Cycle World would call the Sportster the fastest motorcycle they ever made. tested, some would say they should have tested more motorcycles, but hey, it was incredibly powerful, finally on par with imports and looked great and of course sports at this point would start to spawn a whole customization scene, hot rods and Choppers in the United States and is very influential. that in the end both British and Japanese manufacturers found themselves struggling to make their motorcycles look sporty and the whole Japanese Cruiser phenomenon was due to the fact that the power of the motorcycles continued to increase thanks especially to larger valves as the years advanced. 60s until 1965, the xlch.

The Sportster was tested at 55 horsepower, which is significantly higher than almost all other mass-produced bikes in this class. If you are looking for a sports car, many would say that these models from the late 60s, before AMF bought Harley, are really the place to go. These models had more power, better lubrication and more displacement, which helped maintain the name of the sports car between models like the Bonville and later the Norton Commando and, of course, the upcoming Honda CB750. We can also appreciate the incredible sound of the Iron Head engine, it wouldn't be long after sports really got going and their overhead valve engine would become obsolete again when Honda released the incredible overhead cam CB750, a motorcycle that would single-handedly put an end to the British motorcycle. industry okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit of an exaggeration, there were certainly other factors, but man, it doesn't help when your traditional pizza place is struggling and suddenly the best Woodfire Pizza in the world opens right next to your establishment .

As much as Harley continued to update the Sportster, they couldn't compete on paper with what Honda and other Japanese manufacturers could now offer, and although they went through serious financial struggles, especially during the dark years of the AMF, the Japanese invasion didn't kill Harley. . or sports as it did with the British industry, but why is it like this? This is one of the great mysteries of motorcycle history. Why Harley was able to survive being even more traditional than British motorcycles and possibly as unreliable as the Sportster's 60 year lifespan really gives us a clear view of what this motorcycle was and what Harley was trying to achieve with it. her and her survival as the great British bikes went from being on top of the world to being completely dead in one thing.

For a few years thanks to Japanese offerings, the sport continued even when Harley ditched the paddle head for the Evo platform in the '80s, they continued to make Vengeance overhead valves, while the Japanese manufacturers had been making high-revving fors for over a decade to the point where at this point in the 80's when the Evo engine was released the faster and bigger Japanese bikes were completely different and doing something completely different than what Harley was doing with the sportster , but there was never a time when Harley considered converting the Sportster. say, a sports bike or an adventure bike, it simply stayed the same as the world around it moved forward now that the popularity of high-revving Fours has waned in recent decades.

I wonder if we've been looking at all this backwards, maybe the Sportster was trying to tell us something that we're only now starting to understand that more revs and even more horsepower don't always equal more fun. Sportster and Harley riders in general have always known this and with the new popularity of the V format, both v4 and the V twins, perhaps Harley's torky bikes were strangely ahead of the game, regardless of the fact that when you look at the Sportster and its Evolution, no pun intended, you see a motorcycle coming from a manufacturer in Harley that isn't playing exactly the same game as all the other British roadsters. to Japanese touring bikes and sports bikes, you know, Italian racing bikes, all these things have come out and the motorcycle industry has changed a lot since the Sportster first came out and throughout history there's just old Harleys that do what they do and still sell. tons of expensive motorcycles, although the model name of this motorcycle was XL at the time of its release, Harley had just gone from labeling their models solely with simple letters to now having motorcycles called Hydrog Glide and Hummer, but for this motorcycle they managed to give it one of the coolest names in motorcycle history right up there with the Fireblade Sportster, this name would really define what Harley was trying to do and what they would continue to do with this bike in the future, it was not and would never be a sports bike In all rules.

It had too much DNA to be a sports Roadster, a Sportster, it was a cruiser, a middle ground between Harley's big touring bikes and what the British offered, a bike that is powerful, yes, and fast, of course, but more nothing, just fun. to cruise and ride and it's just great, it would be a motorcycle that, like many of the Harley motorcycles, gave the illusion of power and speed with its raw sound and visceral feel, you know, if the big British twins were like a good pint and the four Japanese. maybe a good wine, the jock was like a shot of whiskey, not necessarily the wisest path to drunkenness, but it will sure get you there and you could end up in a bar fight at the end and in the 60's and 7's and even today Nowadays that's exactly what many American motorcyclists want: the Sportster would really exist as a symbol of Harley's entire business model in a completely American way; they would just continue to consistently make do with what they had and remain competitive in their own strange way, even like the British. the industry fell, the sport just moved on and what made this motorcycle great and really kept the company afloat is that it was still the company's own, it wasn't a total attempt to copy the British or the Japanese or anyone , it was still like that.

Completely Harley and that made it unique throughout its long history, in essence, until a few years ago, the basic DNA and shape of the Sportster remained almost completely the same, while most other manufacturers moved to shaft machines overhead cams and high-revving multi-cylinder machines. Harley just kept rumbling along with its trusty V-twins as much as the SportsterIt was a new type of motorcycle upon its launch, a motorcycle that kept them alive amid foreign competition in the end, it's the way the Sportster managed to carry on Harley's heritage that really made it competitive in another way. To put it, it would be that it's the way the Sportster stood out, it didn't fit in or copy other bikes that made it truly great.

It's no secret that Harley today faces a dilemma similar to that of the '50s and '60s, when many of its riders left the brand for smaller, cheaper and often categorically better motorcycles, but I think the dialogue about Harley's future may be a little wrong. Often the dichotomy of Harley's path forward is to stick to his heritage or move beyond his heritage into the future. I really think the Sportster and its long history is a useful guide for this discussion and to move beyond the future argument of Heritage versus the Sportster was an all-Harley motorcycle that appealed to those who wanted a Harley or wanted something unique and all-American, but it was a capable and usable street bike. bike, at one point it was Harley's bread and butter and really his source of income even though it slowly became something of a relic.

I would say that today Harley, with models like the new Sportster, is trying to do the same thing that he is trying to do for both. point to his heritage as they move forward like they did in the 50's with the Sportster, if they are having success. I think that was a topic of debate a few years ago, before my father knew about my obsession with British motorcycles, if I had told him I was going to buy a motorcycle, he would have immediately asked me if it was a Sportster here in many parts of the United States and especially in the midwest Sportster is basically synonymous with motorcycle, it's like the F-150 of two wheeled machines F-150 equals truck Sportster equals motorcycle and I think it's cool to dig in and learn about the history of the Sportster.

Many sources were used for this video, but I want to mention one in particular, which is a YouTuber named Chris. from OT, creates some really amazing content and in particular this historical video series on the Sportster, so I've linked the first part below if you want to dig deeper and check it's still ongoing and if you like it, you know the detailed motorcycle . historical videos, check out his channel and lastly, I have no doubt that many of you have owned and ridden Sportsters, so let us know your thoughts and experiences about the bike in the comments below and we'll see you in the next video.