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.
Harley-Davidson: Not Your Average Military Contractor
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.
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.
The Bicycle Model
You read that right. H-D came out with a standard bicycle in an effort to lure young boys into the trademark mode of locomotion. It was from 1917 to 1921 that the company offered the Harley-Davidson Model 318. The product was costly. The Davis Sewing Machine Co. built the bicycles with parts shipped from Dayton, Ohio. After four years of paltry sales, the product was dropped from its line.
An advertisement of the day pictures two boys whizzing by on bicycles with another boy, forlorn, watching them ride by. “Gee, wish I had one,” reads the ad. It goes on: “What sport a fellow can have with a good bicycle! Cross-country spins with ‘the bunch!’ Hunting and fishing trips! Too bad every boy can’t have a Harley-Davidson Bicycle.”
“Harley Davidson Popular With Uncle Sam”
So, read a newspaper article of the day in the midst of the Pancho Villa Expedition. As it turns out, WWI was not H-D’s first military contract. That goes to the military expedition on the Mexican border. Sent to the conflict by President Woodrow Wilson, Army General John J. Pershing immediately requested Harley-Davidson motorcycles in order to fend off Mexican revolutionary, Villa, and his men. Then H-D president, Walter Davidson, worked closely with the War Department in supplying the motorcycles, as well as training the men to operate them.
Some motorcycles were equipped with machine gun-mounted sidecars. When the U.S. entered WWI a year later, the War Department put their order in. Twenty-thousand H-D motorcycles. Fun Fact: Though Pancho Villa is commonly pictured on horseback, Villa relied on motorcycle transportation as well. His brand of choice was not a Harley, he rode an Indian.