Sunday Rider
Sunday Rider
Mert Lawwill and the street-tracker Harley should have built...but won’t
ALLAN GIRDLER
WAY BACK WHEN, WE WERE KIDS enthralled by On Any Sunday, the best motorcycle movie ever made, while Mert Lawwill was going fast, having fun and trying new ideas in his shop, so he could go faster and have more fun. That was then.
Now we former kids are racing in the Geezer class or tuning for our kids and grand-kids or telling them how fast we used to be, while Mert Lawwill, one-time movie star and 1969 Grand National Champion, is still having fun and trying new ideas...doesn’t seem fair, does it?
What makes it fair is seen here, a streettracker based on Harley-Davidson’s new rubber-mount Sportster, with less weight, more power, better handling and all the comforts of the stock machine-and, sure, there’s a price but we'll get to that.
Starting point for the tracker and this tale is that Lawwill buys, from former sponsor Dudley Perkins Harley-Davidson, a batch of 10 new' XLR 1200s, the factory’s sporting model. Lawwill and crew remove the handlebars, the engine and the wiring loom, and wholesale off the other parts, frame through footpegs.
Why not just buy the parts? Because taking the complete bike, through a dealer, means H-D the parent company will have no say in this project. Veteran racing fans will recall here that when Mert rode for the factory, he and they didn't always agree as to who owned whose new ideas. Same thing here?
“Let's not go there,” Mert grins, meaning you got it.
When Lawwill was top gun on the AMA Pro circuit, one of his partners was Jim Belland, a Perkins guy and tuning wizard, famous for his work with frames. Makes sense then that Belland designed a new main frame, to carry the XL engine and use the rubber mounts and be stronger and lighter. Oh, one other stock part, the portion of the steering head that carries the VIN data, is cut free and added to the new frame, so there’s no problem with registration; the numbers match and the tracker is legally a 2005 XL 1200. Neat, huh?
Lawwill’s parallel career, so to speak, has been with bicycles, mountain and BMX types mostly. He’s in the bicycle hall of fame for his work on rear suspension. This carries over, in that the tracker’s rear suspension, a single Penske shock, fully tunable and using a rising-rate linkage, works with a semi-parallel-link swingarm. This is similar in principle to the rear suspension Lawwill has used on later racing XR750s, reworked to cope with street loadings and in line with computer analysis. In brief, what the parallel swingarm does is take the engine and braking loads out of the suspension equation, plus drivebelt tension isn’t affected by wheel travel.
The XL 1200 engine is partially dismantled before it goes into the new frame. Lawwill is using new camshafts from Andrews, spec’d to match other changes to the engine, as in STD cylinder heads with higher intake ports, D-shaped (a la XR-750) exhaust ports, reworked combustion chambers with larger valves, and with front exhaust and rear intake for both cylinders, again like the XR-750. The otherwise stock pistons are flycut for clearance.
The two carburetors are 38mm flatslide Mikunis, racing wear sized for allround riding and fitted with classic dirt-track air cleaners.
Exhaust pipes come from SuperTrapp, with mounting reworked to blend with the rubber engine mounts; like the stock XL, the exhaust system fixes solidly to the engine and drivetrain, and flexes with the frame and other cycle parts.
Ignition is stock. This fits with the wiring loom, in that the complete electrical system, charging and starting and lights and so on, are factory-issue; the tracker can use H-D parts and even the dealership’s diagnostic gear in case there’s ever a problem.
The battery isn’t as out of sight as Lawwill would like, he admits, it’s just that the usual space for that and the oil tank are occupied by the rear suspension.
The oil tank itself is art. Lawwill made a wood form that displaced 3 quarts and fit into the space allocated, then gave the buck to the guys who cut the pieces and form the tank in aluminum and weld it all up, and yes, that’s one of the factors to consider when we arrive at the bottom line.
Same for the fuel tank, also made in alloy. It’s shaped to suggest the XR tank, but just a bit larger here and longer there, so it will hold the full 3.5 gallons of the stock XL tank. “No point going for a ride if you have to stop all the time,” says Lawwill.
Fork again is a stock part, straight from past Buells. Brakes are off-the-shelf Brembos. The tracker is light enough to allow the single front disc.
The wheels seen here are from Kosman, but production machines will have A&A Racing wheels, 19-inch front and back just like the XRs use. Tires are Maxxis. There’s a new twist here, though, because although they look like Grand National wear, the tread’s the same but the compound is one made by Maxxis for paved ovals; that is, these are highwaydurable and all-weather, they just look like dirt-track and fit the image.
Sure, the numberplates are part of the style, and the headlight, rectangular so it follows the plate’s form, is still large and powerful enough for road use. The taillight, brake light and signals came over the counter.
And the sum of these parts? First, Lawwill hasn’t done dynamometer testing, but Harley-Davidson has built and tested similar engines and those tests predict crankshaft output in the low hundreds, as real estate people say.
Curb weight? “I was amazed at how much stuff I took off,” Lawwill says, while motorcycle folklore reminds us that no stock Harley-Davidson part was ever chosen because it was light. Some of the basic brackets on the stock XLR weigh 10 pounds or so, Lawwill estimates, so his tracker will come to the line at not much more than 450 pounds, by happy chance the same neighborhood as the classic kickstart XLCH.
Wheelbase is 57 inches, rake is 27 degrees, offset between the steering stem and the fork tubes comes from the factory-okay, Mert’s shop-at 3.5 inches. That can be adjusted. The triple-clamps can be supplied with offsets from 60 to 70mm, with 65mm the starting point. Riders who prefer steering that’s quicker or more stable, whichever, can tune to suit.
Lawwill has some partners in this venture, so the risk is shared but nobody wants to lose money or over-estimate the demand for a model so removed from the (some might say lamentable) fashions of the present.
Buyers are asked to make a down payment, $10,000 in earnest money, with another $16,000 due on delivery.
Not cheap, in so many words, but reasonable in the sense of getting performance and quality parts and construction and yes, exclusivity.
One surprise here, shades of Henry Ford (although he never actually decreed that all his cars would be black) is that the tangerine-and-silver paint scheme shown is the paint scheme. All the production machines will be done this way. Mert says: 1 ) everyone who’s seen the bike at the shows went wild over the paint; and 2) he likes it and the combo is traditional with him, end of question.
Next question, why would Lawwill and backers make this investment in a semi-production street-tracker when history tells us Harley-Davidson won’t even come close to such a venture?
It’s a matter of scale. H-D has all it can do supplying bikes for all the buyers of West Coast Choppers T-shirts. Subsidiary Buell has been assigned the cutting edge, making radical sportbikes that look as if they belong in an extreme-sports video even when they’re standing still.
Meanwhile, there may not be enough flat-track fans for the big guys to court, but there are enough to have created lots of homemade street-trackers and even more aftermarket suppliers, so a limited-production tracker done right, with history and expertise on its side, seems like a workable idea.
All Mert and friends really need to make the project work is 10 successful guys who know who Harvey Mushman really was.
To find out more about Lawwill, his motorcycles, his bicycles and his prosthetic arm attachment that allows amputees to ride again, log on to www.mertlawwill.com. Be sure to check out the extensive photo galleries, including outtake stills from On Any Sunday featuring Mert, Malcolm Smith and Steve McQueen.
