The Performance Falters

The company got a boost from the US military during the First World War. Most of the 20,000 motorcycles used by the US Army in the war were Harley-Davidsons. By the 1920s, the company was the world’s leading manufacturer of motorcycles and one of only two US motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression. With the outbreak of the Second World War, production of bikes for civilian use was almost entirely suspended; the company was to produce almost 60,000 machines for the army over the course of the war.

At the end of the war, production of civilian motorcycles recommenced. Harley got back to its winning ways in racing championships. With the collapse in 1953 of its only surviving domestic competitor, Indian Motorcycles, Harley-Davidson became the United States’ only motorcycle manufacturer.

But by the mid-1970s, the company was in trouble. Harley- Davidson was losing market share to new, better-engineered Japanese motorcycles.

Back in 1969, the company had merged with the American Machine and Foundry Company (AMF). The new owners cut back the workforce, streamlined production and rapidly increased output, with a consequent fall-off in quality. Machines were being shipped with missing parts, leaving dealers to do their best to patch them up themselves to get the bikes ready for sale. The company’s loyal consumers might be prepared to fix and modify their less-thanperfect machines, but a new generation of riders were turning to the better-engineered and less expensive Japanese imports.

The Harley-Davidson was parodied by bikers as the ‘Hardly-Ableson’. The iconic brand was beginning to die.