As Harley-Davidson Inc motorcycles roll into their 100th anniversary this week, owners and collectors are celebrating an American icon that has come to represent coolness and badness worldwide -- at a growing price tag.
This image costs buyers of a new Harley-Davidson US$8,000 to US$25,000 -- far more than other brands -- and up to US$150,000 for rare, early models in Japan, a major market for Americana.
PHOTO: EPA
"Many motorbikes look like Harleys, but a Harley sounds so different," said Lin Todd, a former helicopter pilot who, like other Harley fans, revels in the "heavy-throated, muscular sound" that other makers can only try to imitate.
Even among newer models, "Harleys hold their value better than any other brand," added Mark Andrew, who works for a trucking company. He estimated that his fifth Harley, for which he paid US$15,000 in 1998 and accessorized, could sell for up to US$22,000 -- unless he trades it in at book value at a dealership.
The loud roar of the engine -- which riders amplify by adjusting or removing the mufflers -- is just one aspect of the black leather, bad-boy image that Harley-Davidson tried to shake for most of its life. The company -- founded in 1903 by William Harley and Arthur Davidson, and joined later by Davidson's brothers Walter and William -- finally embraced that image in recent decades as "bad" became marketably "cool" and rock n' roll became mainstream.
"It's one of those images associated with freedom, individuality," said Bill Jack, senior archivist at Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Co in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Riders talk about motorcycling as a peaceful experience, a frontier activity. There's a tribal nature to it. Information and history are passed on orally."
That motorcycling aura has been popularized by movies such as Marlon Brando's The Wild One (1953), Steve McQueen's The Great Escape (1963) and, recently, Bad Boys.
But this image goes back to the 1880s, when inventors such as Gottlieb Daimler in Germany motorized a bicycle with a gas engine. By the early 1900s, hundreds of companies were making these new loud and fast machines with no brakes or clutches.
Harleys were made especially rugged and heavy for the clayey muck in Milwaukee in the winter. The daredevil image stuck when in 1936, Harley-Davidson focused on the sports market to survive the plentiful cheap automobiles rolling off Henry Ford's assembly line on to the roads.
Motorcycles from that period and earlier are the most valuable, because most were junked in a country that favored the new.
Models from 1905 to 1909 are worth US$80,000 to US$150,000, according to Manabu Okada, owner of Semba, Japan's largest dealership. Taxes, freight and other charges push prices up in Japan, said the collector, whose grandfather started the business by buying up 200 military Harleys from the US Army after World War II. These models now sell for US$13,000 to US$18,000.
In 1971, when cheap, reliable Japanese motorcycles ruled the market, broken-down Harleys from the 1930s and 1940s sold for just US$75 each, said Herbert Wagner, author of At the Creation: Myth, Reality, and the Origin of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, 1901-1909.
In 1984 Harley-Davidson went public, and antique motorcycles sold for record prices at an auction after Steve McQueen's death, setting the tone for the secondary Harley market up till now.
"What people want are unrestored original motorcycles, relatively unused," said Dale Walksler, who sold his Harley-Davidson dealership and set up the Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique