50 Years of the Harley Sportster

Cruising through half a century of pop culture, land-speed records and death-defying stunts on two wheels

In the clutter and kitsch of American culture, not many ideas survive the test of time. Consumer products that outlast their 15 minutes of fame are few and far between. The Fender Telecaster. The Louisville Slugger, playboy. Now you can add another to the list: the Harley-Davidson Sportster. Celebrating its 50th birthday this spring, the Sportster has had one of the longest production runs of any motorcycle in history. You can trace its evolution through company catalogs and patent numbers, but a myth is more than the mechanical details. The Sportster has had a lasting impact on pop culture; it is a lens through which we can view 50 years of American history. Somewhere along this time line you became aware of motorcycles and specifically the Sportster. Shall we go for a ride?

•1957: Wil­liam S. Har-ley and three brothers, Ar­thur, Walter and William Davidson, made a name for them­selves build­ing big bikes with V-twin engines. They founded their

company in Milwaukee in 1903, and by the 1950s their machines had welded together the terms motorcycle and rebel (see the shot of Elvis, above). In 1957 the company unveils a new bike—the XL Sportster—with an all-new Harley engine (the first

883 cc overhead valve) and a new four-speed transmission. Its 40 horsepower is enough to hurde the bike down the road at 92 miles an hour. Cost: $1,103. Unlike other Harleys, it has the chain on the right side rather than the left. The com­pany produces 1,983 units the first year and sends another 418 (desig­nated XLA) to the U.S. Army. •1958: Harley-Davidson unleashes the XLCH (for "competition hot"). The new model features a smaller, 2.5-gallon "peanut tank" to reduce weight for competition. With the so-called eyebrow head­light and dual staggered exhaust, it defines the look of the Sportster. •1962: In its first major magazine test (Cycle World), the 50-horsepower Sport­ster reaches a top speed of 122 mph.

•1965: Hunter S. Thompson turns an article assignment for Harper's magazine into his first book, Hell's An-

gels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. Riding Thompson's soft tail, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, The Na­tion, True, Es­quire and The Saturday Eve­ning Post haul the Angels onto the me-

dia stage, along with their Harleys. In turn, 27-year-old Hell's Angel Sonny Barger sends a telegram to President Lyndon Johnson, offering to volunteer

"a group of loyal Americans for behind-the-lines duty in Vietnam. We feel that a crack group of trained guerrillas could demoralize the Viet

Cong and advance the cause of freedom. We are available for training and duty immediately." The photo of Barger atop a Har-ley Sportster (opposite page) is now available as a fine-art print from hdart.com for $350. •1969: St. Louis-born racer Leo Payne pilots his signifi­cantly tweaked Sportster, the Turnip Eater, to 201 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, surpassing the record for a non-

streamlined motorcycle by 43 mph. • NBC debuts Then Came Bronson. Tough but sensitive actor Michael Parks plays Jim Bronson, journalist and pilgrim. Bronson rides a red-orange Sportster, with an "eye of God" emblem on the gas tank and a sleeping bag on the handlebars,

through a two-hour pilot and 26 episodes. The adventures have

titles like "The Old Motor­cycle Fiasco" and "Your Love Is Like ^ a Demolition Derby in My

Heart." Parks sings the theme song, "Long Lonesome Highway"—and it makes the charts. •1970: Harley introduces the XR-750 racing motor, and a destroked version of the Sportster becomes a flat-track and TT legend. Road-going versions pump out 90 horsepower, more than dou-

ble the original Sport-^k^ ster's muscle.

• In the hands of a master, the Sportster gives us another Ameri­can icon. Stunt rider Evel Knievel had gained national attention of

the "there's no success like failure" kind when he crashed trying to clear the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on a Triumph. Switching to a Harley XR-750 Sportster, he dons a red, white and blue jumpsuit with cape. Today an Evel Knievel Sportster from 1972, plus cape and uniform, resides at the Smithsonian. •1971: Knievel announces he is going to become an action-figure hero. In a press conference he says, "Next year the Ideal Toy Com­pany is going to make a lot of Evel Knievel toys. One toy I'd like them to make is my own idea. I think it's the most super toy in the world. You wind it up, it goes like a little bugger, goes across the floor, grabs this

little Barbie doll, throws her on the floor, gives her a little lov-

ing, jumps back on the motorcycle and goes whiz­zing out the door, scream­ing, 'G.I. Joe is a faggot.'" The Evel Knievel action figure, stunt bike (a Sport­ster without the name) and accessories earn the Ideal Toy Company

¦ $300 million. I Bruce Brown re­leases On Any Sun­day, perhaps the best motorcycle movie ever. Most people re­member the film's dirt-bike desert-race antics and some guy lamed Steve McQueen.

But the camera also follows Mert Lawwill's American Motorcyclist Association title defense, which he made on an ironhead Sportster XR-750. The film also captures Cal Ray-born setting a world land-speed record of 265.492 mph in a Denis Manning streamliner (pictured bottom) at the Bonneville Salt Flats. A Sportster engine powered the missile, which now resides at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio.

•1972: Swelled perhaps by Kniev-el's antics, sales of Sportsters jump from 10,775 to 18,150 in one year. •1977: William G. Davidson, scion of one of the founding fathers, designs the XLCR—the Sport­ster as a 1970s-cool 1,000 cc cafe racer. All black, the bike pro­duces 61 horsepower and a top speed of 100 mph. It appears in the May 1977 issue

ot playboy with the comment "This is what a motorcycle should look like." Harley produces only 3,124 units, and the XLCR is dropped from the line after two years. It is now one of the most collectible Harleys. •1986: The company continues to refine the bike, introducing two

new power

plants—the Evo­lution 883 and 1 1 00 —which become the backbone of the Sportster line. •1987: With a featured role in the movie Man­nequin, starring Andrew McCar­thy and Kim Cattrall, the quintessential

biker s bike goes mainstream. • 1990: Johnny Depp plays a greaser

in the John Waters-directed 1950s biker spoof Cry-Baby. Making cameo appearances: former porn star Traci Lords, Iggy Pop and a Harley Sport­ster (Depp's choice of ride, naturally). •1991: Can you say "heavy metal"? During the Judas Priest Painkiller tour, frontman Rob Halford rides a Sportster onstage during the tune "Hell Bent for Leather." Blinded

by a dry-ice fog at a Toronto gig, he crashes into a drum riser, tum­bles from the stage and then con­tinues, heroically Finishing the show with a busted nose. Now that's what we call rock and roll. •1995: Aspiring television broad­caster Suzanne Maretto (Nicole Kidman) hires three teenagers to kill her husband (Matt Dillon) in Gus Van Sant's To

Die For, based on a true story. Does the title refer to the Harley Sport­ster that plays a supporting role? •1996: The Sportster gets a meaty l,200cc engine. The top-of-the-line XLH 1200S boasts an $8,360 price tag. •1998: The Gug­genheim Muse-

um in New York City launches a groundbreaking exhibition called The Art of the Motorcycle. The show becomes the museum equiv­alent of a rock tour, playing in Chicago, Las Vegas and Bilbao, Spain. Three Harley Sportsters are featured in the exhibit.

•2004: Harley-Davidson introduces rubber-mounted engines to reduce wear

and smooth the ride. The company sells

more than 70,00(1

Sportsters

in the <j£k

calendar year. •2006: Harley-Davidson improb­ably becomes a bargaining chip in international politics. When Kim Jong II threatens to build and test a nuclear device, the United States announces plans to ban exports of such items as iPods

and Harleys to North Korea. News stories about the ban show pictures of Harley Sportsters. •2007: To celebrate the Sportster's golden anniversary, Harley-Davidson releases the 50th Anni-

versary model (pictured below, $9,780) in the spring, with a five-

speed transmission and l,200cc

Evolution engine. The com­pany will produce only 2,000

ot the anniversary bikes. It you're interested, you'd bet­ter move. Like all things Harley, they're going fast.