I have a friend who's collection (and I'm not talking about a Jay Leno type) starts with a '31 VL, and includes a number of other flatties (several 45's, a 74, an 80) a knuck, two pans, an early shovel, and a '99 Twin Cam, the last of the carbureted Road Kings. He has about 50,000 miles on it so far, and uses it for hot weather long rides. He tuned the carb, changed the cam bearings, and modified the stock exhaust into true duals. It gets him where he needs to go, but he's much happier on any of the older bikes.

Edited to add that most of this guy's bikes were built by him from scrounged parts and basket cases.

 

I remember when the Evo came out. It was billed as the greatest engine ever, much better than the previous engine, etc. I remember they said the same thing about the shovel, and look what a total piece of crap that engine was. I decided to wait and see. In '86, every outlaw in Sturgis was on an Evo. I took that as an sign of acceptance in the biker community. And it turned out that the Evo is the greatest engine ever.

 

I personally know a few people that never got rid of their old Evo or Shovel when they got their new Twin Cam. Some ride them from time to time and others in the process of slow rebuild. But most of the guys will ride their lower mileage TC's on a daily basis.

 

The Twin Cam arrived with much excitement to my garage in ' June 05. After 57k miles and a crash it has left the premises to applause and my old '84 Tour Glide is being rebuilt into the time machine it is. After 111k relatively trouble free Evo miles I should've known better, I don't need this steenkin new technology.

 

Yea, I bought a new 1999 Dyna Convertible.....in late 1998. About 10,000 miles, the cam bearings failed in the middle of nowhere. When the cam bearings went out, Harley did fix the problem under warranty. That bike had other strange problems as well that never got sorted out.

Anyways, I continued to stay with the EVO....simple and highly reliable!

 

This year I saw maybe a dozen evo's in my travels and they were all beautiful. This year when I caught the wife eyeing up on a bigger harley I told her I'd find her a ride that would give her a feeling of being a part of history and a few weeks back brought home a mint 89 heritage softtail
Unfortunatley for me her nice chromed out motor makes mine look tired.

 

I sold my FXR after owning it for around 13 years and bought a twin camm, which iv'e had no trouble with touch wood, but i gotta say if Harleys brought out another Evo engined Nightrain, i would be first in line to buy one. One observation though for all the TC knockers the 96 engined bikes were the first Harleys to get 2 years warrenty, unlike the Evos that only got a year.

 

I really looked for an FXR, before I got my Dyna...has to be one of my favorite bikes.

 

yeah they are a nice bike but i got tempted by an 88 Nightrain and a good trade in price £6,000 which at the time was around $8,000 i think, as for whats happened to all the Evos i and one or two others have asked this question on the forum some time ago,i dont know but they're not in the UK thats for sure they're nearly as rare as rocking horse crap here,even 88s are begining to disappear.

 

Not exactly on-topic, but.............
In '97 I was in a parking lot with my '85 Fat Bob Superglide waiting for someone and noticed a kid in a pickup circling around. He finally stopped and asked "How did you get that EVO in that shovelhead frame?" I told him "Well, it took some re-engineering and modification, but Harley pulled it off". He left without a word. This year I was at the all HD drags in KY with my '98 Road Glide, and a kid came over and asked "How did you put that EVO in that Twin-cam frame?" I said "Well, ..............................."

They walk among us...............