After lunch we head to the Harley-Davidson Museum. While neither of care much about motorcycles, the museum gets great reviews so we thought we’d check it out. We didn’t have a ton of time, but both really enjoyed it. They have tons of bikes and memorabilia and do a good job of explaining the history in an approachable way.
Harley and Davidson started out motorizing bicycles, but relatively quickly moved to building the whole things. They continued to do well through WW2 (they built tons of bikes for the war) and on up until they got bought by AMF. Things took a big downturn at that point until the families managed to buy the company back in the early 1980s.
At some point, H-D started allowing a lot of customization, and obviously people did a lot of after market “enhancements” (see pictures below).
Entrance
Serial Number 1
Need an engine or 20?
A replica of Evel Kenievel’s bike, complete with bent frames and dents
Lots of gas tanks!
Chrome anyone?
Another custom bike
I don’t even know what to say?
Styling took a bad turn after getting bought by AMF
Evel Foster!
Ready to buy
Doug picks something a bit racier!
Travis had to have a picture of this 1913 Transformer from an early factory