Motorcycle Makes & Models

One of the best-selling Harley-Davidson books of all time is back in paperback. In its hardcover format this book has sold well over 100,000 units and features the beautiful photography of ace lensman Randy Leffingwell. With much more editorial content than other promotional titles, this inspired book looks at key bikes made by Harley-Davidson over the past 100 years and is a must for the Harley fan.

There can be little argument that Harley-Davidson has become an American legend-one that is known the world over. But the company can also be heralded as a survivor. Two world wars, the Great Depression, and the fickle buying trends of the American public managed to kill off all of the estimated 300 U.S. motorcycle manufacturers that once dotted the country-every one of them-except for Harley-Davidson. This volume celebrates Harley-Davidson's 95 years in the motorcycle business. The Motor Company has come a long way since William Harley and Arthur and Walter Davidson pieced together that first prototype and no doubt the founders would be proud of its progress.

Things got a little weird in the American motorcycle industry after World War II. People hungered for new motorcycles, buying just about everything manufacturers could build. But on rare occasions a manufacturer produced a machine that nobody wanted. Such was the case with the Harley-Davidson Model K. The Model K had most of the features buyers wanted in a modern machine, like hand-operated clutches, foot-operated shifters, and cool-running aluminum heads, but it lacked perhaps the most important technological upgrade: a modern overhead-valve valve-train design. The Model K retained the antiquated side-valve design because of arcane AMA racing rules written when Harley-Davidson and Indian competed head-to-head on American racetracks, but by 1952 Indian was on its last legs. This should have made the Model K a massive sales success. What nobody counted on was the British bike invasion. Thanks to their modern overhead-valve engines, the lightweight British bikes humiliated the side-valve Harleys on the track and on the street. Upgrades to the Model K didn't help; Harley finally relented and introduced a new overhead-valve middleweight for the 1957 model year. Dubbed the Sportster, it was everything the Model K was not. More importantly, it was faster than the British competition. Thus began the Sportster's sixty-year reign. Harley-Davidson Sportster: Sixty Years tells the complete Sportster story. Noted Sportster expert Allen Girdler covers all the bikes--the XLCH, Café Racer, XR1000, XLX, 883, Iron, Forty-Eight, Seventy-Two, and Nightster--that have made the Sportster one of the most iconic motorcycles on earth.

This manual contains easy step-by-step instructions linked to hundreds of photographs and illustrations. Includes troubleshooting, short cuts, notes, cautions for the home mechanic, color spark plug diagnosis and an easy-to-use index.

This illustrated guide is packed with interesting facts and follows the history of the famous Harley-Davidson company and the development of its famous bikes, which have earned a special place in the hearts of enthusiasts everywhere. The story dates from 1903 when Bill Harley and the Davidson brothers, with no thought of fame or fortune, decided to build a motorcycle that really worked. So successful was it, that it led to the gradual formation of a company that has survived through good times and bad. Through good times and bad, losing and winning back police contracts, as well as weathering various other vicissitudes, the company has achieved lasting success. In the end, Harley-Davidson came to the ultimate decision of giving its customers what they really wanted, not by providing year-on-year innovations, but by remaining true to the Founders' original concept. The result, as everyone knows, are bikes of mythic status, imbued with a mysterious quality of their own and generating a passion in enthusiasts amounting almost to a love affair. The name has come to personify America and is up there alongside Coca-Cola, Ford and McDonald's. The bikes are described in detail, not only in mechanical terms, but also with glorious photographs, and will be of interest to everyone who loves motorbikes: even aficionados of Japanese and European bikes, who have never even ridden a Harley-Davidson, will be able to recognize the unique marriage of style and nostalgia and the fact that there are no other bikes quite like them.

Harley aficionado Wolfgang Wiesner sorted through factory archives and personal collections from throughout the world to create this, the first photographic history of Harley-Davidsons. Wiesner provides a thorough development history of Harley-Davidson, following the riders, movie stars, folklore and, of course, the Milwaukee Iron itself.

Photographs show racing, antique, and special model Harley-Davidson motorcycles, as well as biker art and enthusiasts.