Odd Harleys

Harley Davidson started out making strange bikes, but before something can be called out of the ordinary, a consistent period of normality must be established, and this did not exist among early motorcycles.

By the Second World War, Harley Davidson had established itself. If you said the words Harley Davidson people knew what you were talking about. Harley Davidson got involved in the war effort, and had to give up some control. The Army drew up specifications for a motorcycle almost exactly like BMW’s opposing twin, shaft driven bike. Harley built about a thousand of them but stopped when the Army decided that Jeeps were more suited for its purposes. The bike was called the Harley-Davidson XA (experimental army), and the cylinders ran a hundred degrees cooler than Harley’s V-twin. It was a good bike.

Probably the most bizarre thing Harley Davidson ever made was the Tri-Hawk three- wheeler. They were around briefly in the mid-eighties and then were abruptly removed from showrooms. It had two wheels up front, and the passenger and driver sat side by side inside a shell that resembled a Lotus racecar. Either way behind or way ahead of their time, these bikes were very strange.

Harley made another odd three-wheeler, this one somewhat revolutionary in that its front two wheels lean into corners just like a bike. Harley applied for a patent in 2006 for this bike. The as yet unnamed bike has a real muscular and futuristic look and is rumored to be powered by the 115 horsepower Revolution motor from their V-rod, a borderline strange one in its own right.