Now updated to include the latest motorcycles, this definitive Harley-Davidson history is filled with "inside" information and valuable data. Features Harley-Davidson's entire production history, with special information for restoring any of the classic models. 284 illustrations, 14 in color.
The Harley-Davidson Story: Tales from the Archives is a fascinating, visually driven overview of the motor company's rich story, created in cooperation with the Harley-Davidson Museum. The story of Harley-Davidson is a classic American tale of spirit, invention, and the right idea at the right time. From its beginning in a small Milwaukee shed in 1903, William Harley and his cousins, the Davidson brothers, set in motion what would eventually become the world’s most iconic motorcycle company. While other motorcycle companies rose and fell through the teens and 1920s, Harley went from strength to strength, whether introducing its first V-twin motor or dominating race tracks across America. The Milwaukee Miracle even prospered during WWII, building war bikes for the armed forces. By the 1950s, they’d buried their last American-built competitor, Indian, and gained a hold over the US market that they maintain to this day. A remarkable story deserves a remarkable space to recount it. Such is the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, which opened in 2009. Harley-Davidson partnered with Motorbooks to create this book relaying Harley-Davidson’s story, as told through the museum’s displays and archive assets.
The Harley-Davidson Source Book is the ultimate curated survey of the ultimate motorcycle. It details the most significant designs and models throughout the Motor Company's history.
Get an eyeful of the most beautiful Harley-Davidson bikes on the market, the CVO. This fully illustrated volume is loaded with the most mouthwatering bikes out there.
Motorcycles have been a way of life for Jean Davidson. Her grandfather was Walter Davidson, one of the four founders and the first president of Harley-Davidson. Her father was company vice president Gordon Davidson. And Jean herself was a Harley-Davidson dealer, rubbing elbows with all the Harleys and Davidsons as well as the Hell's Angels and Outlaws, famous racers, and Evel Knievel. This is the history of Harley-Davidson motorcycles no one else knew-until now! Here is the fairy-tale story of how four boys built their first motorcycle in a shed; how a slippery-handed maid stole all the company's earnings from the coffee can that served as their "bank"; and how a hermit uncle donated his life's savings to resurrect the company and set it on the path to becoming the world's most famous motorcycle maker. Here is the inside scoop on behind-the-boardroom-door politics and corporate battles, the unknown history of the first Knucklehead and Sportster, the secret friendship with arch-rival Indian motorcycles, and more. Here are family stories and rare photos from the family album that no one else has seen before.
At the Creation by Herbert Wagner brings to life the human side of Harley-Davidson's quest to motorize the bicycle and then to promote it as a powerful, fast, reliable, and thrilling means of personal transportation. This book examines the origins of two-wheeled transportation from a time when combining the gasoline engine with the bicycle was the province of dreamers and con men. This is the definitive account of the beginnings of the only American motorcycle brand to ultimately succeed and survive. Backed by a decade of research, At the Creation documents for the first time the early years of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle in its birthplace of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an area that was an early center of motorcycle manufacturing. Previous books on Harley-Davidson have failed to adequately cover this critical period, which has been described as the "era of mystery" by Harley-Davidson company historian Martin Jack Rosenblum. At the Creation takes on several long-standing puzzles and myths, and then, through the use of period documents and original photographs, recreates the actual events of Harley's first years as they most plausibly occurred.