Harley-Davidson

HARLEY-DAVIDSON

BOOK NEWS

Harley-Davidson

by Harry Sucher

Haynes Publishing Company

861 Lawrence Drive

Newbury Park, Calif. 91320

$22.95

The long awaited big book about Harley-Davidson has at last arrived from Haynes Pub. where Harry Sucher (author of a similar tome on Indians) has had it in germination for quite some time. There has been very little written about Harleys in hardcover form anyway, mostly due to the factory's resolute non-cooperation, and traditionalists will be glad to know that Harley hasn't changed on this either! The industrious Mr. Sucher, appar ently a longtime H-D fan although I think he has a sneaking preference for Indians, must have talked to everyone on earth to churn out 258 pages of little bitty small type which should, at least for the next 50 years, be the definitive history of the make. All this material is lovingly dis pensed together with bits of juicy gossip that will make your hair stand on end. Ap parently the original foiinders and their successors, rather like the Bourbon kings of France in that they learnt nothing and forgot nothing, pursued business tactics which were restrictive to say the least. In addition, the engineering practices fol lowed were conservative in the extreme and whatever modifications that did ap pear were either forced upon them by the opposition (mostly Indian) or came about as the result of experiments by longtime H-D tuners and dealers.

New bikes as they came out are dated and identified, troubles or otherwise with them are commented upon, trends such as the start of dressers and choppers are not only analyzed but logically explained and old time readers of the Enthusiast will feel at home with remarks about "effete im ports." As an addendum, a chapter is saved for a history of the Excelsior motorcycle.

To describe this book as the definitive work is not to say it's perfect. This isn't a book for restorers, because not every model is described or detailed. There are a few errors of fact: the road race XR750 shown is actually a KR750, and there are typographical errors. The genuine hard core Harley fan will search in vain for the mythical KHK of his childhood, and will be left wondering when the 74 engine changed from panhead to shoveihead and just what was the XLS Sportster from which the first XR750 was derived?

The tone is sometimes petulant, as if Sucher was denied access to the factory and was forced to work around the insid ers, which persuaded him that the out siders' recollections were the gospel truth.

Overall, though, a nice book indeed, giving warts and all from 1903-1980. In dex too small but quality champion.

Henry N. Manney III