Cw 25 Years Ago December, 1965
CW 25 YEARS AGO December, 1965
ROUNDUP
TODAY, WHEN A HARLEY-Davidson goes 150 mph, it's big news. So just imagine what kind of news it was in
December, 1965, when Cycle World ran a road test of the Harley-Davidson Super Sportster. The bike actually was a project, put together by Technical Editor Gordon Jennings and Harley tuner Jerry Branch. The two of them stuffed a very special HarleyDavidson-racing-department engine into a KR roadracing chassis and then went out to River-
side Raceway for a few laps. On the track's half-mile straight, the motorcycle was able to pull its 7000-rpm redline, which translated to 149 mph. Jennings speculated that given enough room and the proper gearing, the bike could have seen 180 miles per hour. At Carlsbad's roadrace course.
Jennings had difficulty keeping the Super Sportster under control. “At almost any point around this twisting. 1.3-mile course, full throttle
would provoke a great blast of wheelspin,” he reported. That’s quite believable, given that the bike was producing 1980s horsepower while running on l 960s tires. What became of the motorcycle isn't apparent. The story mentions that the bike's cylinder heads—credited with most of the horsepower—were to be used on Harley-David-
son's Bonneville effort. But that effort isn't mentioned in the history books. Perhaps those heads were powering a record-shattering Bonneville run. only to melt down at the last moment. That, at least, would provide a poetic, if not documented, end to the saga of the Cycle World Super Sportster. —Doug Toland
