From my understanding, the military gave Harley very little time to design one. They bought a BMW and took it apart to "reverse engineer it".

Wonder if it pogo-sticked in corners when shifting like my old Honda Magna I had years ago? At high speeds, that was a pucker moment.

 

 

Great pics........the Indian is the bike I would guess that "lost" to HD because Indian stuck to the Army bidding specs for a 500cc bike and HD gave them a 750cc which won hands-down? The rest as they say is history. All the GI's wanting to ride when they returned home and were going to be pretty damn HD brand loyal.

 

That's not exactly correct. There was a fore and aft opposed twin H-D made around 1922, marketed to women. I'll see if I can find a jpg and post a pic. http://home.ama-cycle.org/membersonl...assfeb_400.jpg 1922 H-D Sport Twin. Preceded BMW opposed layout by 2 years! Who copied whom?

 

I never knew thta HD made a shaft drive. I know alot of metric have them and people seem to like them alot. I have had a few shaft drive qauds and thyey are nice-instant power and not adjustment, but you do have to service the diff alot. I will stick wiht belt over all other drive set up. Chains suck IMO.

 

Correct, the program I just watched ( Dream Machines The History of Harley Davidson ) Speed Channel said exactly this.

I never felt the pogo on my Wing

 

Probably because you weren't in and out of the throttle in corners. My Vulcan doesn't do it in corners either (and yes I can shift in the corners). Slow down going in, accelerate out.
Getting in and out of the throttle in a corner will make any bike act squirlly.

 

I remember talkin to Dale about them bikes, he is the the owner of "Wheels thru Time Museum". He fired one of em up for me...started on the 3rd kick! He was tellin me that they actually built a good number of em, and also has a midget race car up there powered with one of them motors.
The V Twins were overheating the rear cylinders and sand was tearing up the chains. In lotsa ways the Horiz opposed motors are far superior. Kinda surprised HD did not mass produce them for the civilian market after the war.

 

Thanks for the great pics and this bit of history. Dont recall reading about these bikes in any of the Harley "history" books I own, gonna go back and see if this was missed in them or what.

 

So does this mean "if it's NOT A BMW then it's not a REAL motorcycle??"