Going ‘Off-Road’ at the Harley-Davidson Museum

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Photo via Harley-Davidson Museum

During the first 65 years of Harley-Davidson, couldn’t most of the Milwaukee company’s motorcycles be called “off-road bikes”? “That’s exactly right and that’s the point of the exhibit,” says David Kreidler, exhibition curator at the Harley-Davidson Museum. He’s referring to the “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” exhibit at the Museum, as well as the launch of a new line, the Pan American, a motorcycle designed both for cities and less traveled paths.

From the early ’70s, Harley-Davidson focused on road bikes. “The Pan American is a return to what Harley-Davidson was during most of its history,” Kreidler continues. A prototype Pan American is also on display.

“Off-Road Harley-Davidson” was scheduled to open on November 21 but, alas, it hasn’t been able to jump the COVID hurdle. The museum remains closed to the public until further pandemic safety updates from the City of Milwaukee, but the exhibit is ready and includes exemplary motorcycles produced from 1914 through 1972 plus one 2006 model from the company’s Buell subsidiary and a couple of one-of-a-kind custom jobs.

“Off-Road” opens with the 10-F, a 1914 model whose rugged adaptability is attested by the odyssey of a satisfied customer called Hamilton Laing. Text panels tell the story of the Canadian naturalist who bought a 10-F in New York City in 1914 and drove it to Manitoba with many stops along the way, including a tour of the Harley plant in Milwaukee. Several of his photographs adorn the panels, showing him crossing deserts and mountains and camped in a pup tent alongside his bike in a forest. “He kept a detailed journal and complained about the terrible roads in Wisconsin,” Kreidler says. “Road building was more art than science in those days.”

Elsewhere in the exhibition is a picture from the same era of company co-founder Walter Davidson with his bike on a road, resembling a channel of water and mud, somewhere between Chicago and Kokomo.

Where Cars Couldn’t Go

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Photo via Harley-Davidson Museum

In the early days, one of Harley’s selling points was enabling riders to travel into places where automobiles couldn’t go—into woods for camping and fishing and across rugged landscapes more suitable for horses than rickety four-wheeled cars. They were built with a Germanic pride of mechanical craft coupled with the latest developments in engineering. “They needed to handle all different kinds of road conditions,” Kreidler says.

Text panels display advertisements from the 1910s through the ’60s, among them a full-page ad that told of a Harley owner who rode his bike up and down a burro trail, surmounting California’s 10,000-foot “Old Baldy” mountain. Kreidler points to the ad campaign surrounding the 1921 WJ Sport model, lighter in weight than its predecessors, the first Harley marketed “directly to women.” With its low center of gravity, it was ideal for navigating urban traffic yet rugged enough for adventure. Kreidler continues: “It was for going cross-country—leaving the city and going beyond.”

Some of the bikes are aesthetically beautiful, especially the 1963 Scat, as sleek as a panther in black and chrome with a tapered muffler and high gaps between tires and fenders. It ran races on dirt roads and forded narrow streams but couldn’t outrun the market shift when ATVs were introduced in the late ’60s.

Still, in the era of road or “touring” bikes, many riders remained diehards for Harley. On display in the “Off-Road” exhibit is a 1985 FXRP Police model customized by a Florida man, Charlie Pete, for a 9,000 competitive run across South America from Columbia to Argentina. He replaced the original gas tank with a larger BMW tank and installed a metal plate underneath to protect the engine, but that engine and the rest of the bike were designed and made in Milwaukee.

David Kreidler will conduct a virtual gallery talk on “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” on February 25. For more information, visit h-dmuseum.com.