The Cw Library

THE CW LIBRARY

100 Years of Harley-Davidson Advertising

PLAYING WITH WORDS AND BOTTOM LINE FIRST, WHAT we have here isn't a book about Harley-Davidson advertising: It's a book about advertising Harley-Davidson. Which isn't exactly a criticism. Instead, the book is backed by The Motor Company, endorsed by the firm and presented as part of H-D's Centennial, and it ain't a brag, as some homespun hero once said, if it's true.

Well. Quoting from the book itself, the tiny black-andwhite ad for engines-not motorcycles but enginesappeared on January 2, 1905, and was "the company's earliest known advertisement," meaning what we have here is 98 years of H-D ads. Which is close, but no century.

The introduction was written by the chap who ran Harley's ad agency, and the captions for the ads themselves were done by H-D's chief archivist. Both do their professional best to show the firm and its history in the best possible light.

Just as politics ain't beanbag, as Mr. Doolev said about life in Chicago, so is advertising not history. There are minor fac tual mistakes, as well as uncorrected puffery: The ad saying only one man could have done the 1977 XLCR appears here without comment, although Willie G. Davidson, the one man given credit in the ad, has always been scrupulously careful to share the credit with co-workers Jim Haubert and Bob

Moderow. And the 1954 ads celebrating Harley-Davidson's

50th slide past the confusion of how we packed 50 more years

into the 49 since then.

That's the downside. The upside comes in two parts. First, advertising does reveal facts about life and times, sometimes more than the plain facts will show. The motorcy cle's change from utility to sport, for one, and the woman on her own ma chine in 1941, for another. And there's the chap in coat and tie, com pared with the bad dudes pictured when "bad" means fashionable.

Second, these are wonderful ads. Some of 1 the artwork is museum-grade, indeed has become muse um posters. And there are ads with edge, for instance the one in Japanese, done when the import firms were trying to un derstand the lure of the cruiser, done in their native language or so said the ad, so nothing would be lost in translation.

Not what we critics would call a good read, in sum, but a book in the spirit of Harley's 100th, and well worth a good look.

-Allan Girdler

100 Years of Harley-Davidson Advertising, Jack Supple and Thomas Bolfert, 120 pages, $25; Bullfinch Press, 1271 Avenue of the Amen cas, New York, NY 10020; 212/522-3593; www.bullfinchpress.com

The Racing & High-Performance Tire

p AUL HANEY'S TIRE BOOK DOES NOT PRO vide specifics about motorcycle tires or their operation. It is not exactly inexpen sive, either. But it is the single best integrated source of detailed, accurate information on how tires work that you can actually own. This book can provide the background that will connect and make meaningful the information you gather as a user of tires, especially in racing.

Tires are the most important element in the advance ment of motorcycle performance. Improvements in power, brakes and suspension are all useless without a si multaneous improvement in the connection between the vehi

cle and the road. When that connection improves, all other kinds of improvement become possible. I Tires cannot assault the imagination as en gines do. They have no moving parts and are essentially silent. For that reason (and be cause of industry secrecy), we tend to know very little about them. You can learn more from this book. -Kevin Cameron

The Racing & High-Performance Tire, Paul Haney, 288 pages, $60; TV Motorsports, 31 Tophill Ln., Springfield, IL 62704, 217/793-1763; www.insideracingtechnology.com

Triumph Motorcycles

HERE'S THE PROBLEM WITH MOST BOOKS ABOUT Triumph: They're written by the bloody Brits! No offense intended to any tea-baggers out there-my family comes from the Blessed Plot-but the Triumph is really an American motorcycle. We desert-sledded `em, flat-tracked `em, double-engine drag-raced `em, chopped `em, enduroed `em, café'd `em and land-speeded `em. Hell, on that note, in 1956 we gave the brand its most fa mous model name, Bonneville, after Texan Johnny Allen sped across the Salt Flats at 214 mph in his Triumph-pow ered "Devil's Arrow" streamliner.

In his latest work, American author Lindsay Brooke cele brates Triumph's 1902-2002 centenary (never mind most of the 1980s when there was no factory) from the U.S. perspec tive. A true "Trumpet" fanatic and tireless researcher, Brooke tells the company's history competently without drowning us in details as many minutia-minded scribblers have done in

the past. Jeff Hackett, fast becoming our fave photog of clas sic motorcycles, provides some excellent pictures of restored machines, easily the graphic highlight of this book. On the flip side, the art director unfortunately had sidebar stories printed over a special-effects image of a front wheel, render ing the words all but unreadable, especially to middle-aged eyes, the kind attached to most Triumph lovers' skulls. We'll put up with that faux pas, though, to get the rest of this book, which rates as the best Triumph title ever, regardless of country of origin. -David Edwards

Triumph Motorcycles: A Century of Passion and Powe~ Lindsay Brooke, 192 pages, $35; MB! Publishing, Ga/tier Plaza #200, 380 Jackson St., St. Paul, MN 55101; 800/826-6600; www.motorbooks.com