No more Harleys for India

The 500cc single was a Buell. HD killed Buell around 2009.

Actually, HD has been building bigger engines forever. The first 1310 CC bike was in 1937. I used to own one of them.
With the advent of the Evolution motors in the mid 80s displacement was bumped from 1200 to 1300+.
HD even offers 134 C.I. crate engines now; equivalent to well north of 2000 C.C.s.

Even the sort of lowly Sportster has been displacing 1200 C.C.s for quite a while. Not knocking the Sportster as Iā€™ve owned 2 in the past. One being a massive 1960 stroker motor that was a beast to kick start and would run faster than I cared to go on it. No speedo; just a blur of white stripes with speed guesstimated by a watch.

At least For 2020 there still is a Street 500

They also had a 500cc version of the 750cc liquid cooled street rod. Same stroke, smaller bore, bike weighed just as much and it even pulled the same gear ratios. They were heavily used by dealers for their MSF rider education courses and replaced the Buell Blast! models for that purpose. Yes, the exclamation mark was part of the bikeā€™s name.

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The line in India, not here. I looked at the HD Indian web site.

That wouldnā€™t fit Harleyā€™s image. Mercedes Benz and BMW sell smaller cars in Europe but donā€™t here because it goes against the luxury car image.

Thatā€™s a nice looking bike and liquid cooled engines offer a great deal of improved performance but at the cost of waaaay too much added potential for failure.

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Anyone remember the years of AMF Harley. I had a AMF Harley 175cc enduro. That would probably have a niche in India.

Air cooled are all going to die for the same reason as air cooled VWs and Porsches; emissions are not as easy to meet.

Harley started offering liquid cooling back nearly 20 years ago with the V-Rod; a downright ugly monstrosity that HD riders for the most part hated. Theyā€™ve been offering liquid cooling for the past half dozen years but as Rod-Knox stated it adds to complexity and potential for failure.
Last thing in the world I would want is 600 miles from home with a leaky radiator, failed cooling fan, or worse; an electronic fuel injection glitch.

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Life will go on . . .

I well remember when Porsche was transitioning from the air-cooled 911 to the liquid-cooled 911

There were lots of diehards who said only air-cooled 911 models were the real thing

Fast forward several years . . . I donā€™t hear that kind of talk very often

And Porsche is still viewed as a manufacturer of some pretty bad___ cars :smiley:

And Dylan was lambasted switching to and electric guitar but he somehow hung on in the music business. But with his voice itā€™s amazing he ever had the first hit. And Porsche has become such an outrageously luxurious personal vehicle that the old die hard performance fans donā€™t really matter any more. And most have died off or are too old to drive these days. Itā€™s a new world every few years. We must get on or get out of the way.

I agree, but I think that his poetic lyrics carried the day for him.
That being said, all he has done for the past decade or so is to mumble his way through songs, and I find his later works to be unlistenable because of that mumbling.

I saw him live 20 years ago and he was over powered by the band to cover for his worsening voice then. Soon afterward I saw Tammy Wynette and they did the same for her. Iā€™ll continue to listen to my old albums and enjoy the music like it was when I first listened. I have a few original Dylan albums from my misspent youth.

Past decade . . . ?!

Try the past several decades

Even Bob Dylan himself admitted . . . just a few years ago, as a matter of fact . . . that the 1960s were the only period in which he was really inspired at the top of his game

Those small bore Harleys were actually rebadged Italian Aermacchi motorcycles.Aermacchi - Wikipedia

Just like anything with a Harley badge (bikes or parts) the value keeps on going. A nice Sprint can bring 6 to 8 grand or more.

Some years ago a guy gave me a cherry old Harley oil tank that I could never identify. Even some shops had no idea. Finally IDed it a decade or so go and itā€™s a first year production Knucklehead tank from 1936.

Three tanks that year and mine is the mid year version. Will bring 2500 bucks if I wanted to sell it; which I donā€™t and which is not manufactured in the aftermarket. If someone ever wanted it they better dig way deep.
Old HD parts back in the day were a much better investment than gold or the stock market. Even unrestored old speedometers can bring a grand or two and people used to trash that stuff right and left. Even after being involved in this stuff my entire life I never cease to be amazed at the prices of that stuff.

In 1977 while looking for warehouse space in Meridian Ms I ran across a run down block of deserted buildings that appeared to have been used for for machine shop and welding work and a covered alley with a chain link gate blocking it had dozens if not hundreds of motorcycles, many partially stripped down lined up side by side with engines against one wall and tin pieces heaped up on top of the bikes. Several months later after getting things set up for the warehouse I returned to find that pile of iron and look into buying some of the worthwhile pieces but never found it and no one seemed to have ever seen it. It sounds like I had a Twilight Zone moment but thatā€™s never been a problem for me but someone had a gold mine slowly rusting away in Meridian and at some point a real estate investor likely had a front end loader clear out that alley and someone got scrap iron price for the pieces.

In retrospect, yes, it has been a lot longer than a decade or so since he spoke/sang clearly and was actually listenable.

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