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COLLECTOR'S PIECE<br />
AUTOMOBILE<br />
GOOD<br />
VIBRATIONS<br />
The 115 th Anniversary CVO Limited edition<br />
Harley-Davidson makes every other<br />
long-distance touring motorcycle look mediocre<br />
Words by Varun Godinho<br />
In the spring of 1903, the Wright brothers were still a few<br />
months away from their maiden flight, Einstein was working<br />
at the Swiss patent office and Theodore Roosevelt was<br />
President of the United States of America. It was also the<br />
year that one of the all-time motorcycling greats, Harley-<br />
Davidson was born. Operating out of a 10x15-foot shed in<br />
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Harley-Davidson went into<br />
production: three motorcycles were manufactured, each<br />
one fitted with a 167cc engine and were capable of a top<br />
speed of 25mph.<br />
Harley-Davidson survived two world wars, the Great<br />
Depression and fended off serious competition from the<br />
continent across the pond to emerge as the all-American<br />
long-distance tough-yet-smooth touring motorcycling icon.<br />
The image was reinforced by screen legends in the Fifties like<br />
Peter Fonda riding one in Easy Rider and Marlon Brando<br />
battling a rabble-rousing motorcycling gang that were raising<br />
hell on their Harley-Davidsons in The Wild One.<br />
There have been a few milestone engineering moments<br />
in the history of HD. One of the most recent was the<br />
51<br />
EQUITY
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