CN
III ARCHIVES
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
F
orty years ago, Harley-Davidson went
off script. Milwaukee started with a
clean sheet of paper and produced its
interpretation of a café race with what
would become a collector's oddity, the
1977 Harley-Davidson XLCR. While utilizing the
traditional 1000cc XLCH Sportster powerplant,
the XLCR was a unique American take on a sport-
bike. While the XLCR ultimately fell short in terms
of sheer sporting performance and never sold
in big numbers in its three-year production run,
the motorcycle had a certain presence that won
people over. It was black, bold, bad-mannered
and uncompromising, in other words, all Harley.
The London biker hangout, the Ace
Café, is said to be the birthplace of the
café racer. The idea was to strip down
and pump up a production BSA, Nor-
ton, Triumph or other sporting Brit bike,
attach clubman handlebars, rearsets, stiffer
suspension and, if you had the budget, add a
Rickman or Seeley frame, then ride hell bent for
leather from café to café.
By the 1970s the interpretation also began
to often include a wider range of Japanese and
European makes, mostly sporting bikini fairings.
It became a fairly sizable sub-culture of motor-
cycling and Harley-Davidson's famous designer
HARLEY-DAVIDSON'S CAFÉ RACER
P110
The short-lived
Harley-Davidson
XLCR in 1977. It was
a cool bike then but
even cooler now.
