Harley Heaven

HARLEY HEAVEN

H-D Unveils a New Museum in York, Pennsylvania

Tony Swan

The rolling green countryside that embraces York, Pennsylvania is fairly well known to a substantial percentage of the American vacationing public. It's in the southeast part of the state, smack in Pennsylvania Dutch country, with antique shops stuck all over the place and the Gettysburg battlefield nearby.

But for motorcyclists, there really hasn't been much to distinguish this area from about a dozen others in Pennsylvania. Not until 1977, that is. This year goes down as the one in which Harley-Davidson made York the Cooperstown of motorcycling— motorcycling Harley style, natch—with the addition of the Rodney C. Gott Motorcycle Museum to its York manufacturing facility.

Who is Rodney C. Gott and why is his name on a museum full of Harley-Davidson motorcycles? Simple. Gott is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AMF Inc., the leisure products company that owns HD lock, stock and crankshaft. Gott, who learned to ride on a Harley big Twin in 1933, was instrumental in AMF's 1969 acquisition of H-D and is generally seen as a prime force behind H-D's solid track record since the merger. Besides, as ponderous as the name Rodney C. Gott Motorcycle Museum may sound, it’s much less mouth-filling than the William Harley/Arthur. William, and Walter Davidson Motorcycle Museum, which is what the name would almost have to be if the Davidson familv still owned the business.

Harley and the brothers Davidson were the founding fathers of the country's oldest (and only surviving) domestic motorcycle manufacturing company, and the Rodney C. Gott Museum owes them more than recognition of industrial paternity. Beginning with the first H-Ds—crude 25 cu. in. Singles hand-built in a 10x 15foot shed set up on the Davidson family property in Milwaukee—the company founders thoughtfully set aside sample bikes from most of the firm's major model changes and/or additions through the years. The result was a rich legacy of virtually brand new motorcycles with which to stock the museum. In all there are some 100 bikes in the museum collection, some of them right out of the crate, others with a little mileage. Because of space limitations, the museum will have about one quarter of the collection on display at any given time, with the remaining bikes scheduled to rotate in on an annual basis.

The museum displays open wfith a trophv collection, which includes the first cup ever collected by H-D for Walter Davidson's ride in the 10-mile open road race held in Chicago July 4. 1905. If you like to collect statistics. Walter ran the course in : 14:00.04. averaging just a tad under 43 mph.

The founders nicknamed those dawn Harleys the “Silent Grey Fellow's,” and bragged that their prototype accumulated well over 100.000 miles on its original rod bearings, no mean accomplishment for a 3 hp belt-driven pedal-assisted cycle then or now'. Thus it's appropriate that once you get past the museum’s trophy cases the first antique bike to greet you is one of the original Silent Grey Fellows, plucked from the first year's (1903) production run of three.

It's followed by models selected from the entire 75-vear spectrum of HarleyDavidson bike manufacture, civilian, military and police. Certain models are displayed against backdrops covered with memorabilia reflecting the times in which these bikes lived—the early years. World War I, the Twenties, the Thirties. World War II and so on. The sets, designed by Jerry Gilbert’s Chicago-based United Display Company, will remain in the museum while other bikes are shuffled in and out.

The museum gives visitors a look at the technical side of motorcycling with electrically-powered working cutaways that unveil the inner mysteries of disc brakes, suspension, V-Twin engines and the like.

The final section of the museum, guarded by a castoff Evel Knievel Sportster complete with $100 bill stuck to the gas tank, commemorates Harley’s substantial achievements in competition. Besides the impressive collection of plaques attesting to Harley’s droves of AMA Grand National champions, there are some retired race bikes, such as the 250-cc watercooled mount that carried Walter Villa to three consecutive world road racing championships in Europe. The competition section also offers visitors a chance to see some racing films. The footage is drawn from a variety of situations, featuring combat from several seasons, but if the films are predictable in terms of outcome — Harley-Davidson motorcycles somehow seem to wind up winning all the races shown—they’re entertaining indeed. There’s some particularly choice stuff' of current Harley hero Jay Springsteen spraying everyone with dirt in a superb flat track showing.

After browsing through Harley’s yesterdays, you may want to take a look at today with a tour of the York factory. The museum tours are set up with precisely this likelihood in mind, and it's a very short walk from the back door of the museum to the front door of the factory proper.

The plant, AMF’s single biggest manufacturing concern, is a fascinating place with its heavy emphasis on automation and its giant stamping machinery. But an even more striking feature of the tour is seeing new Harley-Davidson motorcycles with their clothes off. In bare bones with only the big Twins and drive machinery in place, the new bikes look very much like their ancestors a few yards away in the museum. Even though Harley-Davidson traces its heritage to a time when the U.S. had only 45 states, the basic machine hasn’t changed all that much. While this observation may reinforce the suspicions of Harley-Davidson detractors, there is nevertheless something comforting about the consistency.

There is no admission fee for either of the tours, which operate at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. weekdays, holidays excluded. The AMF Harley-Davidson York facilities are just off Interstate 83 about 20 miles south of Harrisburg. Take Exit 9E in York.

Groups of 10 or more should give advance notice. Call 717/848-1177. Ext. 6601 for details.