1955 Harley FLE Panhead Is the Finest of Its Breed
Impeccably restored FLE Panhead proves that it isn’t always about maximum power. Sometimes, dialing things back a bit is the best course of action.
When it comes to any sort of motor vehicle, more is always better. More power, more torque, more speed, right? Well, perhaps not always. There was a time, in fact, that Harley-Davidson purposely took some power out of its flagship Panhead, yet they did so for good reason. Turns out, slow moving city cruisers didn’t do so hot with the original 74-inch motor. So H-D dialed things back a bit with special cams and a smaller carb in the FLE Panhead, a move that made life a little easier for our bike-riding local law enforcement.
Though this modification proved quite popular with police, it obviously wasn’t with the motoring public. Most opted for the hotter FL or FLH, which are quite common even today. We don’t know exactly how many FLEs were produced each year they were available, but it wasn’t nearly as many as those other models. And this masterfully restored 1955 FLE Panhead, which we recently spotted on eBay, might just be the nicest one we’ve seen yet.
The original, numbers-matching motor and transmission have both been rebuilt and show zero miles since. Pretty much everything else, including every single nut and bolt, is brand new, repaired, or replaced. Thankfully, the current owner made a painstaking effort to keep everything as original as possible along the way.
The FLE Panhead might not be the most heralded or popular model in Harley history, but it’s still very historically significant. As much as we’d like to think so, it isn’t always about power. And this beautiful vintage yellow Harley is a perfect reminder of that!
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