Harley-Davidson Sportster — Classics Remembered

The end of a world war leaves chaos. Civilian production of cars and refrigerators has been interrupted and must be re-started. Money to pay for bombs, ships, shells, planes and guns has been printed by the boxcar-load, risking a steep post-war inflation, followed by depression. When WW II ended, England’s pockets were pulled inside-out and her once-grand-but-now-shrinking empire could no longer refill them. In 1946 Lord Keynes went before the US Congress to plead that since England “stood alone against Hitler for two years” (from Sept. 1939 to Dec. 7, 1941), she should receive a post-war loan. The vote was a resounding “No way, Jack” (England was a wartime ally, but was now a postwar trade competitor).

To scratch up essential hard currency, England had to export everything possible, and the early star performers were whiskey and motorcycles. Soon Argentina was importing Vincent Vee-Twins as police bikes, and Triumphs – only occasionally seen in America in the late 1930s – became a hit in the US. US domestic bikes had after 1913 lost their transportation function to Henry's cheap Model T auto. The US industry – once the innovator that easily dominated the 1911 Isle of Man TT races – could no longer afford much R&D. US bikes were rugged (which could mean heavy) reliable (which in many cases also meant slow), and elemental (that is, they retained the hand shift, fat tires, three-speed gearboxes, and rigid frames of early days). American motorcyclists were real enthusiasts – they went to races and rallies and they went on road rides – but because so many Americans now had cars, there were few of them.

The sudden alternative of overhead-valve (OHV) British bikes – modern, light, fast-accelerating, and maneuverable – was a shock to the US market, and sales exploded. At the Kiwanis, businessmen drink toasts to the idea of competition but they don’t like the real thing one bit.

Indian fought fire with what they hoped was fire – their own light singles and parallel twins. They fizzled, killing the company. Harley-Davidson in 1951 lobbied for a heavy tariff on imported motorcycles, and for 1952 cautiously modernized their line-up with a 4-speed unit-construction 750 flat-head (or 'side-valve', in England-speak) with foot shift and rear suspension. England had an easy reply – puffing up 500s into 600s and 650s, followed shortly by more compression, dual carburetors, and rear suspension. Harley could stroke too, enlarging their flat-head to 888-cc.

It was still no contest – even a ‘little’ 650 OHV was too strong for Harley’s heavier low-compression KH-model flat-head. It was time to get serious. The K-model had inherited its four geared-together separate camshafts, each one operating a side-valve directly above it. Why not just unbolt the side-valve heads and cylinders, then drop in place new pushrod OHV cylinders with their rocker-arms positioned directly above those same four cams, but now operated by pushrod? That way, the new engine could largely be machined on the same line that had produced the K-models. Cylinders and heads would be of cast iron, making the separate, shrunk-in hard valve seats of aluminum heads unnecessary, saving again on machining cost. Bore and stroke were modernized to 3 X 3 13/16”, making just shy of 55 cubes. Why all those sixteenths? Former Harley racing manager the late Dick O’Brien once said, “If our suppliers need anything more accurate than a carpenter’s rule to make what we need, they just don’t want to do it.”

This four-speed, unit-construction, hydraulic-suspended OHV Sportster XL of 1957 made 32-hp at 4200, putting Harley back in the game of Who Rules the Streets. Everything depended on your point of view. If you longed to beat the Bonnevilles and the Super Rockets, you rejoiced. If you rode British, you scoffed. If the Big Twin was the Only Bike for You, you scorned the XL as “A delivery-boy’s bike.” As with all human affairs, it was complicated. But it was fun!

On all sides of the issue, builders got busy stroking, boring, porting, frequently overstepping the limits of prudence. A lot of chips were thrown onto a lot of shop floors and a lot was learned. A Triumph “night hunter” I met ran 12-to-one pistons on the street in 1963, keeping his “Sportster Destroyer” engine together and knock-free by fueling it only from a drum of purple aviation gas that he kept in a secret shack, far from human habitation or prying eyes. Serious stuff! Wizards of the Harley parts system or trick machinists with very large beards could put crankpins almost anyplace you wanted them, resulting in big, bigger, biggest Sportsters with strange con-rods and even stranger cylinder heights.

And many regarded the Sportster as just a pleasantly lighter kind of Harley that still spoke forth the exciting exhaust rumble. Saturday nights, out in front of “The Ebb Tide”, north of Boston, just after last call, when Chuck Berry or the Flamingos had played the last set, came the Great Magneto Drama. There were the Sportsters, backed into the curb, front wheels cocked jauntily upward. Can these athletic young motorcyclists, possibly several drinks to the good, start these muscular, somewhat cantankerous machines? We gathered to watch as they flung themselves into the air, coming down again and again on their kick-start levers.

Abruptly the game changed. Kawasaki's H1 two-stroke Triple arrived in 1969, handing maximum bang for the buck to a whole new crowd of night hunters; stand forward over the bike, put the tach needle here, get 'er spinning, pin it and sit down. The British industry sickened and died. In 1972 the Kawi Triple got a 50% displacement boost and the year after that came the 903-cc Z1.

Living critters adapt, and so do motorcycles. Some, anyway. Of the above, only the Sportster survives – still air-cooled, still with its four cams. For a time in the 1980s, the 883 Sportster was repurposed as a $4000 loss leader to “bring people to the brand”. A significant number of them were women. Successive displacement increases kept its sporting overtones and AMA spec-class racing, first as an 883 and later as a 1200, kept its big rumble in the ears of “industry thought-leaders”. Thirty-five years ago, when the musical sound of accelerating Triples floated in my window I knew it was closing time in the nearby old mill town. Within five years that sound went silent, leaving today only the rumble of Sportsters.