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Simple History of Harley-Davidson
By Staff Writer
“Motorcycles, a
mechanized version of a horse some may say, were first created in the
early 1900’s”. (Scott, p.7) Harley Davidson, a family run
business for over 65 years, produced one of the first American
made motorcycles. “Through the years of boom
and bust Harley Davidson was known exclusively
as the builder of large, air-cooled V-twin engines,
powering mostly large, heavyweight motorcycles”. (Rafferty, p.8)
Harley still remains the foundation of
motorcycles today.
The first prototype Harley-Davidson was developed in 1901 by both
William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson. Throughout their years of
building different models they worked on improving the Harley
piece by piece and came out with a bike that
stood out for it’s safety measures and
advances. Harley Davidson was also known for its powerful V-twin
engine which appeared in 1909. Their first attempt at developing
the engine was unsuccessful, but after undergoing revisions in the
design it reappeared in 1911. Its new engine
was more suitable for the use of a sidecar
because it produced more power. The sidecar was used mainly for
carrying the wife and family and required the extra horsepower
from the engine.
“The tempo of the company picked up until in 1918, when orders were
helped by the military, Harley-Davidson was the world’s largest
motorcycle company.” (Scott, p.21) In the mid 1920’s
Harley-Davidson decided to expand and
manufacture bikes for racing even though the
original design wasn’t intended for racing use. The
developer’s opinions changed when they
saw that money could be made and that their motorcycle was one of the
top-of-the-line bikes on the market for this kind of use. Many private
Harley owners that raced found the motorcycle to hold up well on the
track. Once the Harley manufacturers found out about this they started
to construct a more advanced motorcycle for racing. By doing this they
changed the V-twin style engine to a 37-cubic-inch
sports model. This new model gave the bike more power, quicker
starts, and an over all better performance.
As the years went on new models were produced and during the fifties
women began taking more active roles in motorcycling following examples
set a decade before by the Motor Maids. This popular group of
women riders, supported by the American
Motorcycle Association (AMA), demonstrated
that women needn’t be only passengers. A women named Dot Robinson was
the original president of the Motor Maids. New models of
bikes were made to suit the desires and needs of women riders.
The bike’s engine size and metallic structure was configured
specifically to
fit a women.
In the 1960’s Harley riders started to develop an image of riders with
black leather jackets, tattoo’s, long hair and even beards. This had
become not only a statement of fashion, but a preferred
lifestyle. Motorcycle movies like “Run, Angel
Run!” staring William Smith, and “Easy Riders”
staring Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson became popular in
the late 1960’s. As a result of these motorcycle movies,
motorcycle
riding gained a “bad boy” perception within the general population.
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