issue 189
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lee marvin in the wild one (1953).
Hold on to your horses! The old Harley Touring frame is 15 years old, and now with the release of the new 2024 CVO models with an all-new frame and suspension along with a ‘future proof’ 121ci VVT M8 engine which will be competitive for years to come.
My prediction is that the VVT engine is ready for the 2035 EU/California certification. Why? Because I believe it is designed to run on environmentally friendly, hydrogen carbon-neutral synthetic fuels. A VVT engine was patented by Harley in 2019;
but this isn’t it.
I believe Harley is looking down the road to the 2030s for when the electric LiveWire and now the Del Mar city bikes et al are regulated to just the city (unless you believe there will be a breakthrough in lightweight batteries). You see the petrol-engined motorheads want their potato-potato motorcycles, sports cars, and even race cars built with the noise making engines.
Hey, the great news is we can keep riding our current Harleys for another 120 years while city folk can ride and drive their sewing machines. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Burning it doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases coming out the exhaust pipe; just noise and good ole H2O. No catalytic converter required.
Here is how it might work for us in Australia…
In 2026, at the Highly Innovative Fuels (HIF) plant in Tasmania, seawater is split by electrolysis into oxygen and hydrogen gases. Then combined with carbon from the air to make carbon-neutral synthetic methanol which then can be turned into eFuel.
Today in Chile at the HIF experimental plant, a litre of eFuel costs about $A15. Or two dollars if mass produced. Expensive? Not if you are a F1 driver, or drive a 1962 Ferrari GTO or even a new Porsche. At this rate by 2035, Harley will be price-wise, the Porsche of motorcycles. When everyone has gone electric, Harley will still be making bikes to run on Australian produced, tax-free eFuel. Just like EV electricity is tax free today (ha, ha if you think that will continue).
The petrol heads that are putting their millions of dollars in where their profits are, are Porsche, Toyota, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and a few governments like the USA, Japan, Chile, Germany and Tasmania. In Japan it’s called “Hydrogen Small Mobility and Engine Technology” or HySE. Porsche and HIF Global are jointly developing eFuel. As you may remember Porsche designed both the Harley Nova V-4 and V-Rod engines. And again, the VVT engines meets environmental EU laws as a synthetic eFuel.
So now with all that engine and frame stuff said above, what do I think Harley is going to do in the next five years. Well I have a name for it – Crayola Crayon Colours collector editions.
The formula for it is simple. Take a currently produced Harley model and paint it in a fantastically beautiful and expensive colour modelled after a historic Harley. Like was the 2021 Electra Glide Revival, 2022 Apex Grand American Touring bikes, 2022 Low Rider El Diablo Enthusiast, 2023 Fast Johnnie Enthusiast bikes, the six red 120th Anniversary bikes, and now the 2023 Icon Highway King.
As for the future collector editions we can paint them in the style like 1909 Model 5-D V-Twin in Silent Gray Fellow grey, 1936 EL Knucklehead in modern deco, 1956 KH that Elvis was famously pictured on the cover of The Enthusiast magazine, 1957 first true Sportster with Willie G’s first tank emblem, 1968 XR750 that Cal Rayborn won the Daytona 200, 1980 XR750, 1994 XR1000, and in 2020, the black on black 1980 Inspired FXB Sturgis 117, one of one Low Rider S.
THE WILD ONES
In 1963 the Motor Company’s historian summarised it well with the history of motorcycle jackets:
“The 1950s and ‘60s also saw the explosion of the American motorcycle culture, with black leather jackets becoming not only a statement of fashion, but of a lifestyle. The tough ‘Wild Ones’ image, made popular by the Marlon Brando movie of the same name, labeled motorcycle enthusiasts as outlaws. In truth the phenomenon started in the late ’40s with returning servicemen who had backpay and a yearn to see the country while trying to deal with the pain and horror of war.”
The Motor Company actually produced motorcycle jackets from 1910. In 1931, it was the Short Brown Leather Jacket and in 1947 the Brando Cycle Champ part number 11069-46. Going through many World War II photos you start seeing bomber jackets and the classic A-2 flight jackets at historypreservation.com. In 1947 the Cycle Champ and Cycle Queen leather jackets were a styling hit. The Pistol Pocket on Harley jackets was copied by many other makers.
Funny, something everyone missed in 1954 was an ad in The Enthusiast that showed four jackets: Cycle Champ, Cycle Queen, Sportster, and Toursman… three years before the true 1957 XL Sportster. I wonder what happened to the name Toursman and its bike?
Today the Brando One Star Perfecto motorcycle jacket is still copied by everyone, including the Motor Company. If you don’t have one you can still get one at h-d.com/au, or just google Waldenmiller.com.au, Tigerangle.com.au, Schottnyc.com, LegendaryUSA.com, Brooksleather.com/711, Vansonleathers.com/111, and for all old style leather jackets, historypreservations.com. But remember one thing, the best Brando motorcycle jackets are made in the USA and Australia.
HOG CENTRAL
Some 23 years ago, Doc Robinson called me up and asked if I’d like to write a column called HOG Central for Heavy Duty magazine issue 50, some 139 issues ago. And then, for issue 51, Brumby came up with the idea of Cybercycles as a sidebar since so much of what I wrote about were things I borrowed with attribution from the internet.
Both were geared to Australia and New Zealand as Harley only had the worldwide The Enthusiast magazine while there was no Harley Australia publication. That is until Harley replaced The Enthusiast with the HOG Magazine in 2009. Then in 2020 with new management at H-D, the HOG was replaced with The Enthusiast Magazine… It seems to me nothing ever really changes. History just does repeat itself. Learn from history or be condemned to repeat its mistakes.
