Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RACER TEST Vintage Harley-Davidson 1 000 Early Harley Davidson racers like this 19241000cc, elght·valve race r set the standards of the era. Designed to be raced on the boards and flat tracks of pre-Wo rld War II America, the Harley featured many innovati ons. By Alan Cathcart f all th e racing m ot o r cycles ever bu ilt, t h e Ame rican V. twins of the ' teens and '20s are u nques tionably th e most rakish . Lean yet meaty, lithe yet muscular, they exuded speed and perform ance by the standards of the era. If eve r a mo torcycle looked to be d oing 100 mp h while s tandi ng s till, it was the arc he type Ame rica n Ra cer fro m wh ose sp ind ly fra me, close-co u p led w he e lbase and braw ny e l -cu bic-in ch (1000cc) V-twi n engine evolved a s pecies of superbi ke whose like was not seen again until the end of the Swingin g '60s. Yet , at th e \Q) . . same time, these early America ns pos- r-, 0\ 0\ ..... o ..... .... QJ ..0 S QJ U QJ c 12 sessed a degree of mecha n ical sop histication quite unma tched by their Eu ropean counterparts - except for the occasional devia tion such as th e 1912 DOHC Peugeot twin. . Born to ra ce on th e boards and flat tr acks of pre-WW I America, bred and n ur tured in the intense co m petit io n between more th an a half-dozen riva l factories, American mo torcycles sported such innova tions as countersh aft gearboxes, all-chai n- d ri ve tra nsmissions, four-valve cylinder heads and mechan ica l oili ng lo n g be fo re these fea tures gained accep tance on the o ther sid e of the Atlantic, Such novelties brought two attributes in their wa ke: speed an d reliabi li ty. O nce th e m essa ge r e a ch e d Europe, Amer ican-built bikes, especially Indian and Ha rley-Davidson, began to rea p grea t success there, too - in the han d s of such esta blished stars as Freddie Dixon, Cla ud e Temple, Dou g Davidson (no relation to the motor compa ny) and Amedee Ruggeri. Who? It's not generally realized, eve n by hist ori an s of the Milw aukee bran d, th at It a ly was the scene of so me of Harley' s firs t and grea tes t in ternational vic to ries . It was also o ne o f th e firm 's larges t expo rt markets a fte r th e Great Wa r, with a large a nd we ll-es tablis hed di stributor in Rom e who even we nt so far as to produce his ow n locall y built model, known as the Harlet te. Built wi th the approval of the parent company an d finished in the sa me khaki and red colors as the bigger bikes, this wa s not a Latin s tru m p e t but a s mall-ca paci ty ru n ar o u nd p o w er ed by a n Austria n Puch engi ne . However, the com pa ny's main concern was the V-tw in, and thousands of these we re im ported as Italy' s h e llb en t- fo r- Ieatb e r mode rn izat io n unfolded in the 1920s. After all, the lon g, straight, fast roads of the ind ustrial north were idea lly sui ted to the large-capacity American bikes - akin as it wa s to America's Midwest , Harley' s heartland. To promote the sales of the se bikes, Ha rley-Davidson Italia imported a lim ited number of factory ra cer s, inclu d ing on e or two of the rare and sou ght-after eight -valve V-tw ins. Thes e bikes , in the hands of the work s tea m kn own (n ot always affectionately) as the 'W recking Crew," had begun to dominate stateside competition by the start of the '20s. The bikes were practicall y as su ccessful in Ital y, principally in the ha nd s of Rug ge ri, w ho, formerly a member of the : Ind ian "Wigwam " frat er nit y, ach ieved even greater renown once he swi tched to Harleys for the 1922 season. That year he won the grueling Milano-Napoli singlestage ma rathon on an eight-valver, then foll o wed that u p w ith victo ry in th e inau gural Italian Grand Pri x at Mon za, averaging 64 mph for the 250-mi le race aro und the pa rkla nd Autodrome to lead three ot her Harley rid ers across the finish line. One of these, in third place on an IOE ("poc ket-va lve ") nl -cubic-i nch Ha rley, was Um berto Fa rag lia , w ho togeth er wi th Ru g ge r i d o m i nated th e Italian large-capacity racing scene du ring the next couple of years. For the 1924 season, he too k deliver y of a brand-new eightvalve ma chine, one of two sent to Italy that yea r from Milwaukee. But the writin g was alrea dy on the wa ll: Harley' S dominan ce of the 1000cc class was so . tot al tha t Italian orga nizers, faced with dwind ling interes t from o ther ma kers and the sim ulta neo us rise of the 500cc class, gra d ua lly d ropped it in th e mid'205. This left Faraglia's new eight-valver to be used primari ly for record breaking - which it was, ind eed . Though the bike also won ma ny races , its principa l ac hieveme n t was to ra ise the Italia n m ot orcycl e s peed record to over 110 mph over the flying kilo - a mark w hich stood u n til th e a rri va l o f th e s u percharged fours in the ' 3Os. Enter Renz o Battilani, a leading figure on th e Eu ro pean v intage-mo torcy cle scene and own er of one of the finest collecti o ns of Ame rica n m achi nes a nywhere in the wo rld . (He has on e of every model of Ha rley m anufactu red d uring the 1920s, for example.) "I' d a lways d rea med of having a n eight-va lve Ha rley- Davidson," he said , "bu t it ' s o ne of the rares t Milwa ukee bikes eve r made, and th er e are only a handful left in the world . However, I knew abou t the bikes that had been sent to Italy - especially Farag lia ' s, which went on being used mu ch later than the others. I spen t no less than 30 years looking for it, followi ng every sort ~f clue or rumor that came my way. I found lots of other Harleys, bu t not my eight-valve u ntil one d ay I reached the end of the ra inbo w . It wa s lyin g in a ga rage in Rome complete ly dis mantled but 99 per-' cent com plete. Th e m an who owned it w as mo re in te res ted in Gu zzis , so I swapped it for one with him and took it hom e. I'd say that , next to th e birth of my so n, it wa s the happiest da y of my life." Baltila ni's im me d iate p roblem was tha t a ll factory da ta pertaining to th e eight-valve ra cers had long since been lost, but, than ks to his contacts in America, he was able to gather enough infor- mation to rebuild the bike to its present superb condition. But then what? Fortu natel y , he' s o ne of the seve r al m a jor Eu ro pean collec to rs who believes tha t bikes should be seen in action and used . Thus, for the past coup le of years, the Battilani eig ht-valve Harley has been one of the sta rs of the annual Misano histuric race - even scoring th ird place in the event for 19205 machines tw o years ago in the own er' s hands. Tho ug h th is yea r he was mo re con ce rned wit h exercisi ng his s tab le of Freras (a sophisticated Italian marque uf th e 1920s th a t produced se vera l U.S.style bi kes, includi ng a 1000cc V-twin and a fou r-valve 500), Renzo brou ght the Harley along to Misano as well - to allow me to experience the delights of a bike capa ble of more than 110 mph without a front brake or rear sus pens ion. Milw a ukee may no t be in cowboy country, but the first sight of the eightvalver tells you it's a two-wheeled version of a Texan co w w ra ng le r· lean, m ean, an d p a ck ing a punch. Ha rle y came late to the racing ga me in the United States, fieldi ng its first factory team in November of 1914. By this time, other makes - es pec ia lly Ind ian - had esta blished a considerable ad vantage, but HD's racing eng ineer, Bill O tta wa y, and co-founde r Bill Harley we re able to learn from their riva ls' exploits. Though their firs t racers were p ocket -va lve mod els, the eight-valve unit soon follow ed . Ind ian's Osca r Hedstrom had already pro ved th e ad vantages to be gai ned in ter ms of com bus tio n and breath ing by th e u se of .p ai r ed va lv es, b u t a t first Harley-Davi d son was unabl e to grasp th e concep t in practica l term s. After a series uf se tbacks, Ot taway and Harley enlisted the services of Britain 's pioneer in fou r-va lve engi ne d evelopmen t, Col. Harry Ricar do . Afte r severa l weeks in th e Milwau kee factory in 1915, he per fe ct ed th e d es ign w h ich wou ld firs t appear in com petition the following season, wi th considerable success. 4 No minally availab le to pri vateer rid ers in compliance with the ru les then (as later) governing American racing; th e eight-valve Ha rley was listed for $1500 in 1916 - a hu ge su m a t the time, which effectively restricted its circulation to factory team s and favored privateers . T he price also a ccou nts fo r the very small number of bikes made - perhaps as few as 20, as well as 30 of the 500cc singles , which were eff ectively the twi;' s minu s one cylinder. T h e eight-va lv e eng in e (num ber 24 H82) features th e classic Harley 45d eg ree incl uded cylinde r angle, wit h each pair of pa ra llel va lves set at 90 degrees to its partners. The 3 5 / 16-inch by x 3 l/2-inc h (approx im ately 84 x 89mm) cylinders are lightly finned, with a pair of long, slender pushrods rising in par allel from the cra nkcase. Coil valve s p ri ngs a re u sed , bu t curi o u sly the exha ust po rts are oval in shape, with a single I I l i n-inch Schebler racing carburetor set between the cylinders in timeh on ored Ha rley style a nd fee ding all four inlets. Ano ther curi osity is the fact that the two cyli nders ea ch hav e twi n ex ha ust pipes, but tha t th ose exi ting from the

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