May 15, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Margie Siegal was a teenager, she had a boyfriend with a motorcycle. The boyfriend was forgettable—the motorcycle wasn’t. Since then, she has written extensively about motorcycle history and is the author of Harley-Davidson: A History of the World’s Most Famous Motorcycle. Here she is with the story of Harley-Davidson.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. When Margie Siegel
was a teenager, she had a boyfriend with a motorcycle.
The boyfriend he was forgettable. The motorcycle, well, it wasn't.
Since that time, she's written about motorcycle history for Classic Bike,
for Motorcyclist, Motorcycle Collector, American Iron and Motorcycle Classics. She
(00:32):
is also vintage editor for Ironworks Motorcycle Magazine.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Here she is with the story of Harley Davidson.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
If you ask a non motorcyclist to name a brand motorcycle,
any motorcycle, any type of motorcycle, the first name that
comes to mind, and probably the only name, is Harley Davidson.
Allies are not only well known, they inspire a lot
of passion. How many other companies' logos are tattooed on
(01:07):
people's bicycles motorcycles. There is something about motorcycles, the experience
of moving through the air at speed, that attracts people,
And if there is something about motorcycles in general, there
is more than a mere something about Harley Davidson motorcycles.
(01:34):
Harley Davidson has been building motorcycles for well over a century,
and in that time its products have acquired an aura.
People who ride Harley's are seen as bad and antisocial
and a lot of other things, even though they in
(01:55):
real life their accountants. When most people look at a
horror they are seen not just the vehicle, but a
cultural icon. It wasn't always like this. When the Davidson
brothers and their friend William Harley started out to build
motorcycles at the turn of the twentieth century, they were
(02:17):
only one of over one hundred small American motorcycle factories,
all scheming and competing and trying.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To make it big.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Out of all those aspiring US businesses, only Harley Davidson
has continuously made motorcycles. William S Harley and Arthur Davidson,
who were the two friends who got Harley Davidson off
the ground, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and they may
(02:50):
have been in the crowd when Edward Pennington a confidence man,
I mean a real crook, and he shuttled between the
USA in England depending on which country was getting a
little too hot for him, and he demonstrated a motor
powered cycle in Milwaukee in eighteen ninety five. This was
a huge deal, although no one has ever figured out
(03:15):
how Pennington's motorcycle ran because the design violated several basic
laws of physics. This event may have sparked the idea
of building a motorcycle in William and Arthur's minds. Well
in nineteen hundred, it was very possible to build a
(03:35):
motorcycle without violating several laws of physics. Many of the
necessities for a successful motorcycle had been invented by the
eighteen nineties. The French Didion Button Company was manufacturing a
lightweight and relatively reliable inlet over exhaust engine that could
be adapted for use in a two wheeler. And at
(03:58):
this time a lot of people had been riding bicycles,
and we're getting very tired of riding bicycles uphill, and
we're looking for something that would help get from point
A to point B and have you arrive at point
B not totally exhausted. The Didion Button motor was being
(04:21):
imported to the United States, where it was dissected and copied.
By nineteen oh two, at least thirteen different companies were
building motorcycles in the United States, and they were all
using variations of the Didion motor. Either they were using
the principles that the Didon motor was built on, or
(04:41):
they were just simply copying it. Now, although the Harley
Davidson motor used the same valve configuration of the Didon motor,
it wasn't a copy. They were doing their own effort.
Arthur Davidson had three brothers, and he got joined in
his effort by his brothers, and by nineteen oh three
(05:05):
a prototype was built, tried out, found to not have
enough horsepower, and scrapped in favor of a second prototype,
which was a success. It did get you up a hill,
and there were some big hills in Milwaukee. The first
bike was sold in nineteen oh four. Within a few years,
(05:25):
the enterprise was selling motorcycles, hiring employees and very important
if you want to stay in business making money. Now
what distinguished Harley in the Davidson's effort For the numerous
other backyard motorcycle factories that were springing up at this time,
Harley Davidson had a lot of advantages. First, location, location,
(05:50):
and location location is very important. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin was
the center of the American Industrial Revolution, with nearby sources
for the raw materials needed to grilled motorcycles. Milwaukee was
well served by both railroads and Great Lake steamers. Bringing
(06:10):
in iron and tires and sending out a completed product
was not difficult or really expensive. Milwaukee boasted a skilled workforce,
it needed little training to produce quality goods, and lastly,
but not leasily, Milwaukee produced beer, and beer has always
been important to motorcycling. The second thing that Harley Davidson
(06:37):
had going for it was quality control. Due to the
factory's competent workforce. The Harley Davidson was well built and
for its time reliable. It had more cubic capacity and
more horsepower than competing efforts. Although Harley Davidson's were not
particularly innovative, nobody cared at this point. But people wanted
(07:00):
wanted to do was get to work or get to
wherever they were going. Now, you may ask why didn't
they just jump in their cars. Well, in nineteen o
three there were cars, and they were expecsive, and they
were complicated, and they needed constant maintenance, and motorcycles were
(07:21):
actually faster, and you needed someplace to keep a car.
And if you lived in the city, you had no
place to keep a car. And the people who had
cars were rich and had enough money to hire a chauffeur,
and the chauffur would spend all day basically maintaining the car.
When the chauffeur was not driving a milady about to
(07:44):
tea or wherever she else was she was going. Harley's
at this point were transportation. There was no horror involved.
The major thing that people looked at for Harley was
this is cheaper than a horse and buggy, and I
can get where I'm going on time. The third thing
that Harley Davidson had going for it was at accorded
(08:08):
investors and avoided borrowing money. Indian, the largest motorcycle manufacturer
of the pre World War One period, borrowed huge sums
of money in order to build a foundry. The banks
interfered with the operation of India to the point where
Hendy and Headstrom, the founders, both retired. In contrast, Harley's
(08:29):
investors either didn't meddle with the business or offered good advice, which,
to the brothers in Harley's credit, was listened to and
acted on. So here you have a well and efficiently
run company making quality goods. And the last thing that
(08:50):
Harley Davidson had going for it was that it marketed
these quality goods in a cost effective manner. Arthur Davidson
wrote hundreds of miles to demonstrate his motorcycle and sign
up dealers, while Indian and several other manufacturers supported the
hugely expensive and total blood sport of board track racing.
(09:13):
Harley Davidson entered in duros, which were a form of
motorcycle competition where speed does not count, but arriving at
a checkpoint at a precise time does. Early endua competitions
emphasized reliability and an ability to cope with varying road conditions,
which is exactly what the person of the time was
(09:35):
interested in. But one of the brothers, Walter Walter Davidson,
entered these endurance races on a regular basis. He did
very well with them.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And you're listening to Margie siegelill tell the story of
Harley Davidson when we come back. More of the story
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(10:10):
American stories. Harley and the Davidson brothers began competing with
their motorcycles in endurance competitions where speed didn't count, but.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Ruggedness and reliability did. Here again, Margie.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Siegel, by a nineteen oh eight, Harley Davidson was well
known in the Upper Midwest but pretty obscure nationwide. That
year everything changed. Walter Davidson won a national enduro. This
one win was widely reported on. It put the company
(10:45):
on the map, and sales went from one hundred and
fifty bikes for the year of nineteen oh seven to
one one hundred and forty bikes sold in the year
nineteen oh nine and three thousand, eight hundred and fifty
two motorcycles in nineteen twelve. So here you have an
American motorcycle industry which is humming along, which is producing
(11:09):
motorcycles that are bought by an average person who can't
afford a car, and then nineteen thirteen appears, which is
the watershed year for the American motorcycle industry. The first
thing that happened was that Henry Ford came out with
a Model T. The Model T Ford offered weather protection
(11:32):
and load carrying the ability for a little more than
the price of a two wheeler. So instead of buying
a motorcycle which couldn't carry a whole lot and one
passenger could actually afford and maintain, which was important, a
car which could carry goods to market a lot of
(11:52):
goods and take three or four passengers. So the motorcycle
industry shrank about by the reason of that. The motorcycle
industry also shrank because the war broke out in Europe.
Many motorcycle companies had imported bearings and magnetos from Germany.
(12:16):
World War One ended the availability of these components, but
opened up new opportunities for war production. So one door opens,
one door closes, and a lot of people who had
been building motorcycles stop what they were doing and bid
on war contracts. The number of US motorcycle manufacturers shrank
(12:40):
to about a dozen, and one of those dozen, of course,
was Harley Davidson. The Davidsons and Harley decided that if
their business was going to expand, they needed to enter
road racing for the publicity value, careful planning and training
of trackside crew along when newly designed eight valve racers
(13:02):
produced wins and prestigious races in nineteen sixteen. Now you
look at what Harley Davidson is doing at this point.
They don't just decide, well, we're going to go racing,
let's hire some racers. They carefully plant, they carefully train
the cackside crew. They spend a lot of time with stopwatches.
(13:25):
Everything is tested out, and they won a bunch of races.
And when the US entered World War One, which was
shortly after they started winning races, Harley didn't sell every
motorcycle it produced to the government. It provided about fifteen
(13:47):
thousand motorcycles for the war effort, but continue to supply
its dealers, and at this point Harley had quite a
few dealers all over the United States. Indian, then the
largest American motorcycle company, shipped every motorcycle it made during
World War One to the US government starved its dealers.
(14:10):
People couldn't get Indians and they bought Harley's instead. So
between good publicity from race winds in support to its
dealers throughout the war, Harley Davidson entered the nineteen twenties
in an excellent position, a very good position, except for
one little problem. The Eclipse Machine Company, which is now Bendix,
(14:35):
was suing Harley for patent infringement. The Eclipse suit did
have some validity, and Harley Davidson kept the litigation going
for years until the four founders had enough money to
arrange a settlement. The case settled in early nineteen twenty nine,
and Harley immediately paid off the settlement amount. This was
(14:56):
a big disappointment to Eclipse. Eclipse had pursued theation with
the idea of taking over Harley, and the settlement payment
was this huge disappointment. Harley's mainstay from World War One
through the nineteen twenties were inlet over exhaust F series
and J series V twins. These were simple runnigod motorcycles
(15:20):
that could be repaired by anybody with some mechanical skill,
and a lot of them were hitched to an amazing
variety of commercial sidecars. You don't see commercial sidecars these days,
but in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties it was
a big deal. You had some very narrow streets in
the cities. They were very crowded, and a four wheeler
(15:42):
couldn't get through, but a package truck, and that's what
they call these commercial sidecars could. So Baker would have
a delivery vehicle, which would be Harley Davidson hitch to
a sidecar that was modeled to look like a loaf
of bread, and people who were delivering candy would show
(16:08):
up in a with a package truck and it would
look like a little cottage with lace curtains. And there
were all sorts of different inventive side hacks which could
not only haul goods around crowded cities, but also advertise
the owner's business. The founders were not content just to
(16:34):
sell bikes for commercial use. They became concerned about a
low number of motorcycles sold for sport, and they decided
to revive motorcycle clubs. So they also decided that to
be a boon to dealers as well as Harley's factory,
(16:55):
the clubs would now be run out of dealerships, which
was a good thing for the dealers and also gave
people a place to meet. Clubs were a really good
thing in a few years because they got Harley Davidson,
its dealers and an awful lot of rioters through the depression.
You really do gotta have friends. And then in the
(17:16):
summer of nineteen twenty nine, a lot of bad things happened.
In nineteen twenty nine, Harley introduced a seventy four inch twin,
the V. The early VS were a total disaster. Every
single bike sold between August and October nineteen twenty nine
had to be rebuilt with a factory issuing parts and
(17:37):
instructions in the dealers supplying the labor. And it says
a lot for the relationship between Harley and its dealers
that the dealers were willing to do this for free.
Harley didn't pay them.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And you're listening to Margie Siegel tell the story of
Harley Davidson, and my goodness, what a series of transformations.
They survived being hit sideways in nineteen thirteen by the
model T. It comes in at about the same price
as your motorcycle, and it's covered and it can carry stuff.
But they survive, and they survive by acumen and sharp
(18:14):
business and marketing strategies, getting into the performance end of
the business and then ultimately to clubs. In other words,
had to build a brand. When we come back, more
of this remarkable story, the story of Harley Davidson, And
it's a Milwaukee story. And location, location, location, Well, it's
true Chicago, Milwaukee at the heart of the Industrial Revolution,
(18:38):
the Great Lakes, access to railroads, access to goods and supplies,
and Harley Davidson took advantage of all of it. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story here on
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories.
(19:41):
For the nineteen twenty nine model year, Harley Davidson introduced
their first side valve.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
V twin engine motorcycle.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It was a disaster because Harley had built a great relationship.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
With its dealers.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
The dealers pledged to provide the labor for free, with
the factory providing parts and instruction for rebuilding the engines.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Here again, Margie Siegel.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Now the side valve disaster got straightened out. People started
buying motorcycles again, and then they stopped buying motorcycles because
the depression started to take hold. The factory had to
lay off a lot of workers. Dealers had to cut
their operations to the bone. But the goodwill Harley had
built up over the past thirty years got the company through.
(20:29):
Harley collaborated with Indian. By this time, Excelsior Henderson had
gone out of business due to the depression. To encourage
club racing under new Class C rules. Class C was
another good thing that happened during the depression. This was
amateur racing and people who would go out and race,
(20:52):
and their club would come out and support them, and
people would have fun and enjoy themselves and not be
quite so depressed, And the companies were encouraging this because
they were too proke to hire a factory team. In
nineteen thirty six, Harley produced the Knucklehead, which was its
(21:15):
overhead valve twin, and the new Knucklehead stirred interest in sales.
So Harley's doing better, but now it's facing a new challenge.
You see things go up, things go down, and we're
looking at World War Two. After numerous tests, Harley won
the US Army contract for motorcycles, in large part due
(21:38):
to what Harley has always traded on rre a good construction,
a larger motor, and quality control. The other candidates for
that contract just broke down war. After the war was over,
the company rapped out civilian production and upgraded the product
many xgis road and the rest of the nineteen forties
(22:00):
were good times for Harley. However, within a few years
veterans were settling down, raising families and trading the motorcycle
in for a washing machine, and the good times kind
of ran out. In the nineteen fifties, sales dropped to
the point where Harley Davidson sometimes took on some contract
work for General motors. There were bright spots in the
(22:22):
nineteen fifties. The introduction of the sportster in nineteen fifty
seven stirred interest in sales like the knuckle had had
twenty years earlier, and the people did cape riding, some
people did. The number of people who rode dropped a lot.
The people who did ride were outside the mainstream. They
(22:44):
looked different, they dressed differently, and they seemed tough, and
they seemed anti social, and these were very attractive qualities
to teenagers growing up in a conformist culture. Now Here
we have the aura starting Harley is becoming synonymous with
toughness and attitude, and some people really like that idea.
(23:10):
But it wasn't enough people, so there weren't a lot
of Harley sold. When the good times restarted, though it
was in large part due to a most unlikely cause.
A Japanese company, Yes, a Japanese company named Honda. Honda
established an import depot in Los Angeles in nineteen fifty
(23:32):
nine and spent a lot of money making motorcycle popular
and mainstream. In the nineteen fifties, motorcycling was kind of antisocialist,
but now people could ride bikes and not be thrown
out of their apartments, which happened to one woman I
(23:52):
talked to. Kids learned to ride on the new important
mini cycles, and as soon as they could get necessary together,
bought a Harley because Harley's were bad and tough, and
the had the aura the impact that the imports didn't,
and young people wanted to buy into them. Now, with
(24:13):
the resurgence in riding came a new interest in motorcycle events.
The American Motorcycle Association had been sponsoring gypsy tours, which
were rides in campouts, often with entertainment and racing, since
the nineteen twenties. The nineteen forty nine Hollister event was
(24:33):
part of a gypsy tour. This is the event that
ended up on the cover of Life magazine. Now, for
the record, nothing happened. I'm sorry, nothing at all happened.
I've talked to several people who were there. A whole
bunch of people showed up. This was a family event.
Their wives and girlfriend showed up. This was not an
(24:57):
invasion force, and people drank some beer and enjoy themselves.
The cops closed off a couple of streets for drag racing.
There were some bar fights, people got busted for drinking
too much. I mean, what's different than the normal Saturday night.
(25:18):
The photo with the guy on the bike surrounded by
bottles was staged by a board Life magazine photographer who
was tired of standing around there and not seeing anything
to photograph. In the nineteen sixties, these events Laughlan, a
ton of Beach Lauden, and the granddaddy of them all,
(25:38):
Sturgis exploded. Thousands of people showed up for the experience
of hanging out with fellow bikers and watching some racing
and drinking a little beer. These events, and many smaller
local events, have continued to the present day. There's a
myth that bikers are loaders, and much of motorcycling is
(26:02):
very social. All these events are social events. So here
we have Harley Davidson. Motorcycling is becoming real popular and
the company is trying to expand to catch the wave
of motorcycle interest, but the years of low sales had
emptied out the capital reserves and it can't do it.
(26:24):
At the end of nineteen sixty eight, American Machine and
Foundry bought out Harley Davidson. Now people are really unhappy
with American Machine and foundry. American Machine and Foundry is bad.
It's caused all sorts of problems. Anything that bad that
(26:45):
happened to Harley is because of American Machine and Foundry.
Not true. The AMF buying out had good points and
bad points. AMF pumped a lot of money into Harley Davidson,
allowing the factory to modernize. However, AMF also demanded that
(27:05):
the assembly lines be speeded up past anyone's ability to
put out a quality product, and selling an unreliable motorcycle
to some large guys who are not really patient and
understanding is kind of not a good idea. Irate customers
(27:28):
and unhappy dealers demanded that something be done. In nineteen
eighty one, a group of Harley executives, aided by a
friendly bank, arranged a buyout. Harley was its own company again,
and after a few rocky years and it was really
rocky for a few years, started to regain customer trust
(27:49):
and respect. Harley also started its own company club, Harley
Owners Group, which is called hog Mostly and it continues
to be a social center for riders based on the
local dealership. See how all these ideas just get recycled,
but they get recycled because they were then people like them.
(28:09):
HAG is so successful that is studied in business administration programs.
So the years after the buy out were boom times
for Harley. Once the got over that hump, there were
wait lists for new bikes. Harley Davidson fielded a flat
track racing team, sponsored different road racing efforts, and even
(28:32):
built its own road racer, and it also upgraded the product.
The Evolution motor of the nineteen eighties gave way to
the twin Cam also known as Cliqui of the twenty
first century, and later to the Milwaukee eight for eight valve.
So here's to Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson has weathered changing tastes,
(28:57):
environmental protection, legislation, economic ups, economic downs, and ups and
downs in the business environment. The company has successfully dealt
with all challenges in the last one hundred and eighteen years,
and it's coming up with new stuff. It just introduced
an electric motorcycle, the Live Wire, and a new adventure
(29:19):
bike with a new engine. So crack open a beer
and drink a toast. Here's to Harley Davidson and the
next one hundred and nineteen years of great motorcciens. Margie
Siegel signing off had.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
A great job by Greg Hengler in a special thanks
to Margie Siegel for telling the story of Harley Davidson.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
By the Way.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Order her book Harley Davidson, A History of the World's
most Famous Motorcycle. Go to Amazon dot com for the
usual suspects. It's a terrific read and in the end
well it chronicles the sheer fun and love of.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Riding a Harley. And if you have and done it
by the way, you don't know what you're missing. This
is Lee j. Habib, and this is our American Stories.
And we continue with our American stories. When Margie Siegel
was a teenager, she had a boyfriend with a motorcycle.
The boyfriend he was forgettable. The motorcycle, well, it wasn't.
Since that time, she's written about motorcycle history for Classic Bike,
for Motorcyclist, Motorcycle Collector, American Iron and Motorcycle Classics. She
(00:32):
is also vintage editor for Ironworks Motorcycle Magazine.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Here she is with the story of Harley Davidson.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
If you ask a non motorcyclist to name a brand motorcycle,
any motorcycle, any type of motorcycle, the first name that
comes to mind, and probably the only name, is Harley Davidson.
Allies are not only well known, they inspire a lot
of passion. How many other companies' logos are tattooed on
(01:07):
people's bicycles motorcycles. There is something about motorcycles, the experience
of moving through the air at speed, that attracts people,
And if there is something about motorcycles in general, there
is more than a mere something about Harley Davidson motorcycles.
(01:34):
Harley Davidson has been building motorcycles for well over a century,
and in that time its products have acquired an aura.
People who ride Harley's are seen as bad and antisocial
and a lot of other things, even though they in
(01:55):
real life their accountants. When most people look at a
horror they are seen not just the vehicle, but a
cultural icon. It wasn't always like this. When the Davidson
brothers and their friend William Harley started out to build
motorcycles at the turn of the twentieth century, they were
(02:17):
only one of over one hundred small American motorcycle factories,
all scheming and competing and trying.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To make it big.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Out of all those aspiring US businesses, only Harley Davidson
has continuously made motorcycles. William S Harley and Arthur Davidson,
who were the two friends who got Harley Davidson off
the ground, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and they may
(02:50):
have been in the crowd when Edward Pennington a confidence man,
I mean a real crook, and he shuttled between the
USA in England depending on which country was getting a
little too hot for him, and he demonstrated a motor
powered cycle in Milwaukee in eighteen ninety five. This was
a huge deal, although no one has ever figured out
(03:15):
how Pennington's motorcycle ran because the design violated several basic
laws of physics. This event may have sparked the idea
of building a motorcycle in William and Arthur's minds. Well
in nineteen hundred, it was very possible to build a
(03:35):
motorcycle without violating several laws of physics. Many of the
necessities for a successful motorcycle had been invented by the
eighteen nineties. The French Didion Button Company was manufacturing a
lightweight and relatively reliable inlet over exhaust engine that could
be adapted for use in a two wheeler. And at
(03:58):
this time a lot of people had been riding bicycles,
and we're getting very tired of riding bicycles uphill, and
we're looking for something that would help get from point
A to point B and have you arrive at point
B not totally exhausted. The Didion Button motor was being
(04:21):
imported to the United States, where it was dissected and copied.
By nineteen oh two, at least thirteen different companies were
building motorcycles in the United States, and they were all
using variations of the Didion motor. Either they were using
the principles that the Didon motor was built on, or
(04:41):
they were just simply copying it. Now, although the Harley
Davidson motor used the same valve configuration of the Didon motor,
it wasn't a copy. They were doing their own effort.
Arthur Davidson had three brothers, and he got joined in
his effort by his brothers, and by nineteen oh three
(05:05):
a prototype was built, tried out, found to not have
enough horsepower, and scrapped in favor of a second prototype,
which was a success. It did get you up a hill,
and there were some big hills in Milwaukee. The first
bike was sold in nineteen oh four. Within a few years,
(05:25):
the enterprise was selling motorcycles, hiring employees and very important
if you want to stay in business making money. Now
what distinguished Harley in the Davidson's effort For the numerous
other backyard motorcycle factories that were springing up at this time,
Harley Davidson had a lot of advantages. First, location, location,
(05:50):
and location location is very important. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin was
the center of the American Industrial Revolution, with nearby sources
for the raw materials needed to grilled motorcycles. Milwaukee was
well served by both railroads and Great Lake steamers. Bringing
(06:10):
in iron and tires and sending out a completed product
was not difficult or really expensive. Milwaukee boasted a skilled workforce,
it needed little training to produce quality goods, and lastly,
but not leasily, Milwaukee produced beer, and beer has always
been important to motorcycling. The second thing that Harley Davidson
(06:37):
had going for it was quality control. Due to the
factory's competent workforce. The Harley Davidson was well built and
for its time reliable. It had more cubic capacity and
more horsepower than competing efforts. Although Harley Davidson's were not
particularly innovative, nobody cared at this point. But people wanted
(07:00):
wanted to do was get to work or get to
wherever they were going. Now, you may ask why didn't
they just jump in their cars. Well, in nineteen o
three there were cars, and they were expecsive, and they
were complicated, and they needed constant maintenance, and motorcycles were
(07:21):
actually faster, and you needed someplace to keep a car.
And if you lived in the city, you had no
place to keep a car. And the people who had
cars were rich and had enough money to hire a chauffeur,
and the chauffur would spend all day basically maintaining the car.
When the chauffeur was not driving a milady about to
(07:44):
tea or wherever she else was she was going. Harley's
at this point were transportation. There was no horror involved.
The major thing that people looked at for Harley was
this is cheaper than a horse and buggy, and I
can get where I'm going on time. The third thing
that Harley Davidson had going for it was at accorded
(08:08):
investors and avoided borrowing money. Indian, the largest motorcycle manufacturer
of the pre World War One period, borrowed huge sums
of money in order to build a foundry. The banks
interfered with the operation of India to the point where
Hendy and Headstrom, the founders, both retired. In contrast, Harley's
(08:29):
investors either didn't meddle with the business or offered good advice, which,
to the brothers in Harley's credit, was listened to and
acted on. So here you have a well and efficiently
run company making quality goods. And the last thing that
(08:50):
Harley Davidson had going for it was that it marketed
these quality goods in a cost effective manner. Arthur Davidson
wrote hundreds of miles to demonstrate his motorcycle and sign
up dealers, while Indian and several other manufacturers supported the
hugely expensive and total blood sport of board track racing.
(09:13):
Harley Davidson entered in duros, which were a form of
motorcycle competition where speed does not count, but arriving at
a checkpoint at a precise time does. Early endua competitions
emphasized reliability and an ability to cope with varying road conditions,
which is exactly what the person of the time was
(09:35):
interested in. But one of the brothers, Walter Walter Davidson,
entered these endurance races on a regular basis. He did
very well with them.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And you're listening to Margie siegelill tell the story of
Harley Davidson when we come back. More of the story
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(10:10):
American stories. Harley and the Davidson brothers began competing with
their motorcycles in endurance competitions where speed didn't count, but.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Ruggedness and reliability did. Here again, Margie.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Siegel, by a nineteen oh eight, Harley Davidson was well
known in the Upper Midwest but pretty obscure nationwide. That
year everything changed. Walter Davidson won a national enduro. This
one win was widely reported on. It put the company
(10:45):
on the map, and sales went from one hundred and
fifty bikes for the year of nineteen oh seven to
one one hundred and forty bikes sold in the year
nineteen oh nine and three thousand, eight hundred and fifty
two motorcycles in nineteen twelve. So here you have an
American motorcycle industry which is humming along, which is producing
(11:09):
motorcycles that are bought by an average person who can't
afford a car, and then nineteen thirteen appears, which is
the watershed year for the American motorcycle industry. The first
thing that happened was that Henry Ford came out with
a Model T. The Model T Ford offered weather protection
(11:32):
and load carrying the ability for a little more than
the price of a two wheeler. So instead of buying
a motorcycle which couldn't carry a whole lot and one
passenger could actually afford and maintain, which was important, a
car which could carry goods to market a lot of
(11:52):
goods and take three or four passengers. So the motorcycle
industry shrank about by the reason of that. The motorcycle
industry also shrank because the war broke out in Europe.
Many motorcycle companies had imported bearings and magnetos from Germany.
(12:16):
World War One ended the availability of these components, but
opened up new opportunities for war production. So one door opens,
one door closes, and a lot of people who had
been building motorcycles stop what they were doing and bid
on war contracts. The number of US motorcycle manufacturers shrank
(12:40):
to about a dozen, and one of those dozen, of course,
was Harley Davidson. The Davidsons and Harley decided that if
their business was going to expand, they needed to enter
road racing for the publicity value, careful planning and training
of trackside crew along when newly designed eight valve racers
(13:02):
produced wins and prestigious races in nineteen sixteen. Now you
look at what Harley Davidson is doing at this point.
They don't just decide, well, we're going to go racing,
let's hire some racers. They carefully plant, they carefully train
the cackside crew. They spend a lot of time with stopwatches.
(13:25):
Everything is tested out, and they won a bunch of races.
And when the US entered World War One, which was
shortly after they started winning races, Harley didn't sell every
motorcycle it produced to the government. It provided about fifteen
(13:47):
thousand motorcycles for the war effort, but continue to supply
its dealers, and at this point Harley had quite a
few dealers all over the United States. Indian, then the
largest American motorcycle company, shipped every motorcycle it made during
World War One to the US government starved its dealers.
(14:10):
People couldn't get Indians and they bought Harley's instead. So
between good publicity from race winds in support to its
dealers throughout the war, Harley Davidson entered the nineteen twenties
in an excellent position, a very good position, except for
one little problem. The Eclipse Machine Company, which is now Bendix,
(14:35):
was suing Harley for patent infringement. The Eclipse suit did
have some validity, and Harley Davidson kept the litigation going
for years until the four founders had enough money to
arrange a settlement. The case settled in early nineteen twenty nine,
and Harley immediately paid off the settlement amount. This was
(14:56):
a big disappointment to Eclipse. Eclipse had pursued theation with
the idea of taking over Harley, and the settlement payment
was this huge disappointment. Harley's mainstay from World War One
through the nineteen twenties were inlet over exhaust F series
and J series V twins. These were simple runnigod motorcycles
(15:20):
that could be repaired by anybody with some mechanical skill,
and a lot of them were hitched to an amazing
variety of commercial sidecars. You don't see commercial sidecars these days,
but in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties it was
a big deal. You had some very narrow streets in
the cities. They were very crowded, and a four wheeler
(15:42):
couldn't get through, but a package truck, and that's what
they call these commercial sidecars could. So Baker would have
a delivery vehicle, which would be Harley Davidson hitch to
a sidecar that was modeled to look like a loaf
of bread, and people who were delivering candy would show
(16:08):
up in a with a package truck and it would
look like a little cottage with lace curtains. And there
were all sorts of different inventive side hacks which could
not only haul goods around crowded cities, but also advertise
the owner's business. The founders were not content just to
(16:34):
sell bikes for commercial use. They became concerned about a
low number of motorcycles sold for sport, and they decided
to revive motorcycle clubs. So they also decided that to
be a boon to dealers as well as Harley's factory,
(16:55):
the clubs would now be run out of dealerships, which
was a good thing for the dealers and also gave
people a place to meet. Clubs were a really good
thing in a few years because they got Harley Davidson,
its dealers and an awful lot of rioters through the depression.
You really do gotta have friends. And then in the
(17:16):
summer of nineteen twenty nine, a lot of bad things happened.
In nineteen twenty nine, Harley introduced a seventy four inch twin,
the V. The early VS were a total disaster. Every
single bike sold between August and October nineteen twenty nine
had to be rebuilt with a factory issuing parts and
(17:37):
instructions in the dealers supplying the labor. And it says
a lot for the relationship between Harley and its dealers
that the dealers were willing to do this for free.
Harley didn't pay them.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And you're listening to Margie Siegel tell the story of
Harley Davidson, and my goodness, what a series of transformations.
They survived being hit sideways in nineteen thirteen by the
model T. It comes in at about the same price
as your motorcycle, and it's covered and it can carry stuff.
But they survive, and they survive by acumen and sharp
(18:14):
business and marketing strategies, getting into the performance end of
the business and then ultimately to clubs. In other words,
had to build a brand. When we come back, more
of this remarkable story, the story of Harley Davidson, And
it's a Milwaukee story. And location, location, location, Well, it's
true Chicago, Milwaukee at the heart of the Industrial Revolution,
(18:38):
the Great Lakes, access to railroads, access to goods and supplies,
and Harley Davidson took advantage of all of it. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story here on
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories.
(19:41):
For the nineteen twenty nine model year, Harley Davidson introduced
their first side valve.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
V twin engine motorcycle.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It was a disaster because Harley had built a great relationship.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
With its dealers.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
The dealers pledged to provide the labor for free, with
the factory providing parts and instruction for rebuilding the engines.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Here again, Margie Siegel.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Now the side valve disaster got straightened out. People started
buying motorcycles again, and then they stopped buying motorcycles because
the depression started to take hold. The factory had to
lay off a lot of workers. Dealers had to cut
their operations to the bone. But the goodwill Harley had
built up over the past thirty years got the company through.
(20:29):
Harley collaborated with Indian. By this time, Excelsior Henderson had
gone out of business due to the depression. To encourage
club racing under new Class C rules. Class C was
another good thing that happened during the depression. This was
amateur racing and people who would go out and race,
(20:52):
and their club would come out and support them, and
people would have fun and enjoy themselves and not be
quite so depressed, And the companies were encouraging this because
they were too proke to hire a factory team. In
nineteen thirty six, Harley produced the Knucklehead, which was its
(21:15):
overhead valve twin, and the new Knucklehead stirred interest in sales.
So Harley's doing better, but now it's facing a new challenge.
You see things go up, things go down, and we're
looking at World War Two. After numerous tests, Harley won
the US Army contract for motorcycles, in large part due
(21:38):
to what Harley has always traded on rre a good construction,
a larger motor, and quality control. The other candidates for
that contract just broke down war. After the war was over,
the company rapped out civilian production and upgraded the product
many xgis road and the rest of the nineteen forties
(22:00):
were good times for Harley. However, within a few years
veterans were settling down, raising families and trading the motorcycle
in for a washing machine, and the good times kind
of ran out. In the nineteen fifties, sales dropped to
the point where Harley Davidson sometimes took on some contract
work for General motors. There were bright spots in the
(22:22):
nineteen fifties. The introduction of the sportster in nineteen fifty
seven stirred interest in sales like the knuckle had had
twenty years earlier, and the people did cape riding, some
people did. The number of people who rode dropped a lot.
The people who did ride were outside the mainstream. They
(22:44):
looked different, they dressed differently, and they seemed tough, and
they seemed anti social, and these were very attractive qualities
to teenagers growing up in a conformist culture. Now Here
we have the aura starting Harley is becoming synonymous with
toughness and attitude, and some people really like that idea.
(23:10):
But it wasn't enough people, so there weren't a lot
of Harley sold. When the good times restarted, though it
was in large part due to a most unlikely cause.
A Japanese company, Yes, a Japanese company named Honda. Honda
established an import depot in Los Angeles in nineteen fifty
(23:32):
nine and spent a lot of money making motorcycle popular
and mainstream. In the nineteen fifties, motorcycling was kind of antisocialist,
but now people could ride bikes and not be thrown
out of their apartments, which happened to one woman I
(23:52):
talked to. Kids learned to ride on the new important
mini cycles, and as soon as they could get necessary together,
bought a Harley because Harley's were bad and tough, and
the had the aura the impact that the imports didn't,
and young people wanted to buy into them. Now, with
(24:13):
the resurgence in riding came a new interest in motorcycle events.
The American Motorcycle Association had been sponsoring gypsy tours, which
were rides in campouts, often with entertainment and racing, since
the nineteen twenties. The nineteen forty nine Hollister event was
(24:33):
part of a gypsy tour. This is the event that
ended up on the cover of Life magazine. Now, for
the record, nothing happened. I'm sorry, nothing at all happened.
I've talked to several people who were there. A whole
bunch of people showed up. This was a family event.
Their wives and girlfriend showed up. This was not an
(24:57):
invasion force, and people drank some beer and enjoy themselves.
The cops closed off a couple of streets for drag racing.
There were some bar fights, people got busted for drinking
too much. I mean, what's different than the normal Saturday night.
(25:18):
The photo with the guy on the bike surrounded by
bottles was staged by a board Life magazine photographer who
was tired of standing around there and not seeing anything
to photograph. In the nineteen sixties, these events Laughlan, a
ton of Beach Lauden, and the granddaddy of them all,
(25:38):
Sturgis exploded. Thousands of people showed up for the experience
of hanging out with fellow bikers and watching some racing
and drinking a little beer. These events, and many smaller
local events, have continued to the present day. There's a
myth that bikers are loaders, and much of motorcycling is
(26:02):
very social. All these events are social events. So here
we have Harley Davidson. Motorcycling is becoming real popular and
the company is trying to expand to catch the wave
of motorcycle interest, but the years of low sales had
emptied out the capital reserves and it can't do it.
(26:24):
At the end of nineteen sixty eight, American Machine and
Foundry bought out Harley Davidson. Now people are really unhappy
with American Machine and foundry. American Machine and Foundry is bad.
It's caused all sorts of problems. Anything that bad that
(26:45):
happened to Harley is because of American Machine and Foundry.
Not true. The AMF buying out had good points and
bad points. AMF pumped a lot of money into Harley Davidson,
allowing the factory to modernize. However, AMF also demanded that
(27:05):
the assembly lines be speeded up past anyone's ability to
put out a quality product, and selling an unreliable motorcycle
to some large guys who are not really patient and
understanding is kind of not a good idea. Irate customers
(27:28):
and unhappy dealers demanded that something be done. In nineteen
eighty one, a group of Harley executives, aided by a
friendly bank, arranged a buyout. Harley was its own company again,
and after a few rocky years and it was really
rocky for a few years, started to regain customer trust
(27:49):
and respect. Harley also started its own company club, Harley
Owners Group, which is called hog Mostly and it continues
to be a social center for riders based on the
local dealership. See how all these ideas just get recycled,
but they get recycled because they were then people like them.
(28:09):
HAG is so successful that is studied in business administration programs.
So the years after the buy out were boom times
for Harley. Once the got over that hump, there were
wait lists for new bikes. Harley Davidson fielded a flat
track racing team, sponsored different road racing efforts, and even
(28:32):
built its own road racer, and it also upgraded the product.
The Evolution motor of the nineteen eighties gave way to
the twin Cam also known as Cliqui of the twenty
first century, and later to the Milwaukee eight for eight valve.
So here's to Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson has weathered changing tastes,
(28:57):
environmental protection, legislation, economic ups, economic downs, and ups and
downs in the business environment. The company has successfully dealt
with all challenges in the last one hundred and eighteen years,
and it's coming up with new stuff. It just introduced
an electric motorcycle, the Live Wire, and a new adventure
(29:19):
bike with a new engine. So crack open a beer
and drink a toast. Here's to Harley Davidson and the
next one hundred and nineteen years of great motorcciens. Margie
Siegel signing off had.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
A great job by Greg Hengler in a special thanks
to Margie Siegel for telling the story of Harley Davidson.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
By the Way.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Order her book Harley Davidson, A History of the World's
most Famous Motorcycle. Go to Amazon dot com for the
usual suspects. It's a terrific read and in the end
well it chronicles the sheer fun and love of.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Riding a Harley. And if you have and done it
by the way, you don't know what you're missing. This
is Lee j. Habib, and this is our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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