When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, Harley-Davidson was a robust company ready to help out with the War effort. The company cranked out over 20,000 military-ready motorcycles to fulfill government orders. The Harley-Davidson Model 17 packed a hearty 15 horsepower engine onto a modest 3-speed transmission. They were used for general transportation; leading convoys, dispatching messages and other miscellaneous transport. Some, with a sidecar attached, became ambulances able to transport one or two wounded soldiers on stretchers.
In WWI, many were used in the infantry, barreling into the front lines with machine guns strapped to sidecars. The superior vehicles made an impression on Europeans. Many began to drive them after the war. In fact, the oldest Harley-Davidson riders club is in Prague. It was founded in 1928.
Too Loud or Not Loud Enough?
The gentle roar of a Harley is pretty loud. Straight off the factory floor, Harleys emit 80 decibels of sound, a noise level equivalent to a garbage disposal. While Harley owners wouldn’t call it noise, it’s certainly got volume. Some owners opt to make the bikes even louder by removing the muffler. This engine tweak, sorry, modification, raises the bike’s decibel performance to 100. It’s also illegal.
They argue it’s safer and makes the bikes faster. (No oxymoron here.) What removing the muffler will do is cause hearing-loss. Unprotected ears subjected to 100 decibels of sound will suffer irreparable hearing loss after just 15 minutes of exposure.
Hog Production
This year the company plans to produce and ship out about 222,000 new motorcycles. In 2018, Harley-Davidson sold 132,868 bikes domestically with a worldwide total output of 228,051 machines. These sales generated about $6 billion. Harley-Davidson dominates the motorcycle business, comprising half of all domestic sales. However, sales have been a little soggy over the past few years.
Always the innovator, the company plans to release an electric Harley soon. The biker look is wildly popular in some circles. Motorcycle-related product and specialized Harley merch brought in $262 million in 2017. Selling logo-heavy leather gear represents a respectable 5% of the company’s sales.
The Japanese Production Line
After 1912, Japan began to import Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They used the vehicles for military, police, and state purposes primarily, and so when the demand for the machines began to strain domestic factory output, the idea to set up a factory in Japan came up. In 1929 it happened. Sankyo paid H-D $75,000 for the rights. It was during the darkest days of the Great Depression. The move quite possibly saved the Harley-Davidson company from bankruptcy. But by 1939, leading into World War II, the factory fell into Japanese Imperial hands and Harleys were produced under the Rikuo name. It wasn’t until 1962 when H-D reestablished its Japanese dealership network.
Most Harleys are American-assembled in Kansas City, Missouri and York, Pennsylvania. The V-Twin is built in the Milwaukee factory. But for international and European demand, assembly plants in Thailand, Brazil and India pick up the slack. Parts come from many places. With a made-in-America image to uphold, the company doesn’t share where in the world parts come from, but industry specialists know Japan, Italy, Mexico, China and Australia all make parts.
Harley and the Davidsons
It was William Harley who first came up with the idea, who went to engineering school and designed the Indian-modeled V-Twin, so, it was agreed that the Harley name ought to come first. But it was Harley’s friend, Arthur Davidson, 20-years-old at the time, who jumped in feet first on their boyhood dream to motorize the labor-intensive grind of bicycling.
The friends enlisted the help of Arthur’s brothers. Walter Davidson, a railroad machinist, was lured back home by the prospect of riding one of the new inventions. Finally, William Davidson, the eldest of the three who was a tool-room foreman for a railroad shop, pitched in too. They built the first motorcycles out of the wooden shed, but soon had to build a larger factory in town. Production grew by leaps and bounds and soon the four partners had to hire 35 employees.