Speaker 1: America the Great Depression. Things aren't looking so good for
Speaker 1: the American economy. And all but one of your competitors
Speaker 1: as fallen victim do the drink as people cut back
Speaker 1: on recreational spending. But here you are, Holly Davidson, sitting
Speaker 1: on the edge of economic decline. It'll take some ingenuity
Speaker 1: for you to make yourself a necessity in a country
Speaker 1: pinching its last penny. So rev engines, donia leather coats,
Speaker 1: and make sure tell where are your helmets? Because this
Speaker 1: is Harley Davidson on the brink. Hither everyone. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Aerial Casting, and today we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about a company that has a good long history. Harley
Speaker 1: Davidson been around, been around for for a week or two, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for a hundred and fifteen years, more like it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and just interest a full disclosure, do not,
Speaker 1: nor have I ever owned a motorcycle. I do not
Speaker 1: nor have never owned a motorcycle either. But my family
Speaker 1: they're all motorcyclists. My father has a Goldwing and my
Speaker 1: aunt has been a part of like Friendly motorcycle gangs
Speaker 1: and has taught motorcycle safety classes and has owned many motorcycles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas my parents are teachers and would probably scold be
Speaker 1: if I were to ever even look at a motorcycle
Speaker 1: for too long. But we want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about where the company Harley Davidson came from. And then,
Speaker 1: out of all the companies that started before the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: all the motorcycle companies, how is it that Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: and the Indian Motorcycle Company are the only two that
Speaker 1: that we're able to get through it? So how did
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson get started? Well, Harley Davidson got started in
Speaker 1: nineteen o one when WILLIAMS. Harley, who's only twenty one
Speaker 1: at time, designed a blueprint for an engine on a bicycle. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and so Milwaukee, Wisconsin the
Speaker 1: home of Harley Davidson. And at this point when he
Speaker 1: patents this, motorcycles were already a thing. They existed. It's
Speaker 1: not like Harley Davidson invented the motorcycle. They were pretty
Speaker 1: popular in Europe, but they were still kind of an
Speaker 1: oddity in the United States at this point. The first
Speaker 1: motorcycle made in the US was from a company called
Speaker 1: the California motor Company. That one produced a motorcycle called
Speaker 1: the Marks Motorcycle back in eighteen nineties six. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the vehicle has been around for a while, but
Speaker 1: obviously they did not, you know, make a stamp to
Speaker 1: the point where they became synonymous with motorcycles. Nineteen o one,
Speaker 1: by the way, is the same year that the Indian
Speaker 1: Motorcycle Company was formed, and that would remain the arch
Speaker 1: nemesis to Harley Davidson for the up to now. Yes,
Speaker 1: um So, in nineteen o three, just two years after
Speaker 1: this engine was designed, William Harley and Arthur Davidson, who
Speaker 1: were actually childhood friends, made the first Harley Davidson motorcycle
Speaker 1: public and they built it out of this little ten
Speaker 1: by fifteen wooden shed with their name written on the
Speaker 1: front of it. They didn't spring for a sign, at
Speaker 1: least didn't say no girls allowed. It wasn't like it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't know that, I'm guessing. So that
Speaker 1: first vehicle was essentially a motorized bicycle, so with like
Speaker 1: a like a gasoline powered engine, the bike still had
Speaker 1: pedals and still had a chain drive, and the rider
Speaker 1: was meant to ride the bike. Get it up to
Speaker 1: speed before engaging the engine. And in fact, you were
Speaker 1: supposed to even pedal a bit if you ever hit
Speaker 1: a steep incline. It couldn't go super fast. The prototype
Speaker 1: version before they started making the production model, went about
Speaker 1: the speed of a brisk walk. I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: is you're saving some energy, which you're gonna need if
Speaker 1: you've got to pedal up a steep hill. To me,
Speaker 1: that's the part I want it taken off of me.
Speaker 1: Is a pedal assist bicycle. Well, they made three whole
Speaker 1: motorcycles that first year slow down, I know, right, so
Speaker 1: it's a very small number. But they were also building
Speaker 1: those motors by hand. This wasn't like they had some
Speaker 1: manufacturing facility. They were hand crafting these motorcycles, including the
Speaker 1: motors themselves. Well, despite that, they opened their first dealership
Speaker 1: just a year later in Chicago, yep. And then they
Speaker 1: would find by nineteen o six they had the capital
Speaker 1: to actually invest in better manufacturing facilities. Right, They ended
Speaker 1: up getting a factory, and actual factory, not a shed.
Speaker 1: I mean it was still kind of small. It was
Speaker 1: pretty small you have here. It was twenty eight by
Speaker 1: eight feet, yes, tiny, and they ended up tripling their
Speaker 1: workforce because it went from two people to six, and
Speaker 1: they more than tripled how many bikes they were making
Speaker 1: because now they were up to making fifty bikes ye,
Speaker 1: fifty bikes a year by nineteen o six, And in
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven they would incorporate and the company would
Speaker 1: end up doubling in size by the number of dealerships
Speaker 1: they ended up opening up more of those, and also
Speaker 1: by the number of employees. And they also brought on
Speaker 1: another partner to the company, so it wasn't just Harley
Speaker 1: and Davidson, it was also Davidson. Yeah, it was Harley,
Speaker 1: Davidson and Davidson because it was Arthur Davidson's brother, William Davidson,
Speaker 1: who joined. So then you have to Davidson's in a Harley. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm glad they did not change her name to Davidson
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson. Yeah, that would have been odd. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that the company became known for, it
Speaker 1: became one of their really go to strategies was their participation,
Speaker 1: their involvement in racing, and they were really good at
Speaker 1: it too, so they won a lot of categories in
Speaker 1: racing and a lot of categories in endurance and reliability contests. Um,
Speaker 1: and this was to kind of spread the word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like a marketing scheme. Yeah, because I mean
Speaker 1: people needed reliable transportation. They needed transportation they could keep
Speaker 1: it home and take from home, and especially if they
Speaker 1: didn't live in a big city, Trains and street cars
Speaker 1: weren't as much of an option and roads were not
Speaker 1: in great shape either. No, and horses required you know,
Speaker 1: feeding and a lot of upkeeps. So they're trying to
Speaker 1: turn this motorized bicycle from kind of a novelty to
Speaker 1: something that every home needs. And at this stage, remember
Speaker 1: we don't really have cars right there. There's some electric
Speaker 1: cars that had been made, and there were some there
Speaker 1: were some internal combustion engine cars that were being made
Speaker 1: that they were oddities, even more so than motorcycles. They
Speaker 1: were really expensive and they had very limited range, especially
Speaker 1: the electric ones. Electric cars predate internal combustion engine cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but people didn't want to use electric cars because I
Speaker 1: thought they'd be too quiet and dangerous. Most come on,
Speaker 1: mostly they thought I can get up the street, but
Speaker 1: then I can't get back too. So this was one
Speaker 1: of those moments where there was not really there weren't
Speaker 1: really other options for a lot of people who needed
Speaker 1: to be able to get from place to place. So
Speaker 1: the motorcycle was actually looked at as a potential practical
Speaker 1: vehicle for a lot of people. Yeah yeah, um, and
Speaker 1: along the racing in Harley Davidson actually started their own
Speaker 1: racing department. So Harley Davidson Owners and Harley's are kind
Speaker 1: of called hogs. I've always heard them called hogs, and
Speaker 1: I did not know why, and I love that there's
Speaker 1: a real reason. And then there's the retro fitted reason. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well they say that hog stands for Harley Owners Group. Um,
Speaker 1: but the reason that I read is because there are
Speaker 1: a couple of racing guys who, when they want to race,
Speaker 1: would take the little mascot of like a hog around
Speaker 1: and take laps with a little pig. So so there
Speaker 1: was a literal hog involved. I like that description better.
Speaker 1: And then later on we said, how will we call
Speaker 1: say that hog stands for Harley Owners Group, kind of
Speaker 1: like how Mickey Mouse Guy's name. There's there's some different
Speaker 1: possible theories here. Uh. Milwaukee was starting to get receive
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit from the fact that Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: was a growing industry out of their city. They were
Speaker 1: the top consumer for gas and electric out of that city. Now,
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventeen, we start to see one of the
Speaker 1: most important customers that Harley Davidson would ever have. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are two big, big reasons why Harley Davidson was
Speaker 1: able to make it out of the era of the
Speaker 1: Great Depression, and one of the two is that the
Speaker 1: US military became a really big customer for Harley Davidson. Uh.
Speaker 1: By nineteen seventeen, we're talking about World War One and
Speaker 1: the United States getting involved, and so the US signed
Speaker 1: a contract with Harley Davidson and a third of all
Speaker 1: the vehicles that Harley Davidson was producing, we're being sold
Speaker 1: to the US military. Yeah. Well a year later, half
Speaker 1: of all of their motorcycles were being sold to the
Speaker 1: military for World War One. That's like two motorcycles. That's
Speaker 1: a credible So we also got a point where the
Speaker 1: company formed a an actual quartermaster's school, a way of
Speaker 1: training military on how to work on Harley Davidson so
Speaker 1: that they could remain in good service even overseas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they kept this school even after the war, and
Speaker 1: they they molded it to fit their needs at whatever time,
Speaker 1: they were using it for service, for sales, for management. Um.
Speaker 1: The school lasted until nineteen uh and it's still kind
Speaker 1: of around, but now it's called Harley Davidson University. And
Speaker 1: it's funny. I like the little note you have here.
Speaker 1: The war comes to a conclusion and the first American
Speaker 1: to enter Germany post war rode upon Harley Davidson. Yes,
Speaker 1: also at this point in nineteen seventeen, in or Is
Speaker 1: It Diversify sold more than just motorcycles. They also sold bicycles. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's not bad. No, no, it's not so. The next
Speaker 1: thing I personally laughed at was that in nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: they released a sports model which act really got a
Speaker 1: lot of popularity overseas internationally. Oh and it's cylinder set
Speaker 1: up made it pretty quiet, which harley Is apparently were
Speaker 1: known for being quiet. They actually had the nicknames Silent
Speaker 1: Gray Fellows Gray for the paint color they had when
Speaker 1: they were first being made. And it's just funny to
Speaker 1: me because now Harley's are like the loud motorcycle, right,
Speaker 1: that's the stereotype, revving up the engine and creating this
Speaker 1: incredibly loud racket. But yeah, the early Harley's were known
Speaker 1: for being very quiet. By Harley Davidson had climbed the
Speaker 1: top of the heap that there were other motorcycle companies
Speaker 1: that were around at the same time as Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: and Indian, but they they were first place. They were
Speaker 1: the largest in the world. And not only did they
Speaker 1: have dealerships in the United States, they had dealerships in
Speaker 1: lots of countries, sixty seven countries. Yes. In fact, international
Speaker 1: sales would become incredibly important. Yea. And even nowadays they
Speaker 1: still have a lot of international sales. Yes. Now that
Speaker 1: we've set the foundation for Harley Davidson, let's shake things
Speaker 1: up right. So we have a company. It's it's gone
Speaker 1: to the top of its industry. It's doing really well overseas.
Speaker 1: It had this incredible uh sale to the United States
Speaker 1: military during World War One. The problem starts in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, so it's not yet the Great Depression that
Speaker 1: starts in nine But the nineteen twenties, something else, a
Speaker 1: pair of something else has happened. First, there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a recession, but not the depression yet that
Speaker 1: ended up curtailing a lot of consumer spending. People stopped
Speaker 1: spending as much money on stuff. But the other thing
Speaker 1: was a guy, a little guy named Henry Ford comes
Speaker 1: out with a brand new product, the Model T. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so now cars are a competitor. It was cheaper and
Speaker 1: more practical the motorcycles. Yes, like I said, the electric
Speaker 1: car had not made a whole lot of headway, it
Speaker 1: did precede these internal combustion engine cars. The Model T
Speaker 1: was able to succeed where other cars had failed, largely
Speaker 1: because Ford was creating this assembly line approach that really
Speaker 1: brought down the costs of manufacturing, so he could sell
Speaker 1: the cars that much cheaper and still make a profit.
Speaker 1: So Ford was a genius, a true genius from both
Speaker 1: an engineering and a business perspective, and that he was
Speaker 1: able to bring costs down to make a car affordable
Speaker 1: to more Americans. And as a result, they saw, Hey,
Speaker 1: there's this other vehicle, and I can put stuff in it.
Speaker 1: I can put somebody else in it too. This was
Speaker 1: something that the average person could actually go out and buy.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, a Model T ended up taking a
Speaker 1: big chunk out of Harley Davidson's domestic sales in the
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, I actually got to see a Model
Speaker 1: T once at an anti car show up in North Georgia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every now and then on the streets you might see
Speaker 1: one go by. Someone says, stored them. They are pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I'm not a gearhead, but I'm gonna want to be gearhead.
Speaker 1: So here we have this new form of transportation and
Speaker 1: it's threatening the very business model of Harley Davidson. And
Speaker 1: that's that's the big one punch. The big two punch
Speaker 1: is just about to hit, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in just a minute, but first let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. All Right, we got the
Speaker 1: model t Harley Davidson has been knocked by that. What
Speaker 1: is their response? What do they look for? Well, one
Speaker 1: of the big things that they did is they started
Speaker 1: convincing police departments to use their motorcycles as like a
Speaker 1: quick compact way to enforce law. Um. And this actually
Speaker 1: was really really good for Harley Davidson because cops, you know,
Speaker 1: they put on their motorcycle boots and their little saddle bags,
Speaker 1: and the general public thought they looked like cowboys. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool, and everybody wanted to
Speaker 1: be this like quote unquote modern cowboy. I think that
Speaker 1: really helped shape the look that we see around motorcycle
Speaker 1: culture too. Yeah, it's it's um how they kind of
Speaker 1: modeled their whole accessory and clothing department to sell to
Speaker 1: the public. So this this floats them over the slump
Speaker 1: that they hit when they ford. But then they also
Speaker 1: started to depend very heavily upon those overseas markets. So
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen twenties, more than fifty five per
Speaker 1: cent of their sales were to foreign markets. So it's
Speaker 1: an American company, but they're getting more than half of
Speaker 1: their revenue from overseas sales, mostly in Australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 1: You're brave to try to accent I would not be
Speaker 1: able to do it. I have to get up the
Speaker 1: wick in the morning. Uh So, one way the company
Speaker 1: was able to boost sales domestically was again through those
Speaker 1: community events like the racing events and motorcycle clubs as well.
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson was very much encouraging motorcycle clubs because it
Speaker 1: was a way to kind of have a grassroots marketing campaign.
Speaker 1: But they also they depended heavily on their on their dealerships.
Speaker 1: There was a dealer guy named Bill nuth or Bill
Speaker 1: Nuhs kay in ut h. He was in Milwaukee, and
Speaker 1: he created something that as I was looking into it
Speaker 1: was repeatedly described as something like a circus, side show
Speaker 1: and motorcycle festival all combined, called Nuth's College college spelled
Speaker 1: with a cave. I mean, that's a college I'd like
Speaker 1: to go to. Yeah, just saying apparently. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of good food and a lot of trick writing
Speaker 1: and then motorcycle writing tips and things like that. So
Speaker 1: it was educational and it was also entertaineding and it
Speaker 1: was a community event. So again it was all about
Speaker 1: let's show people how cool motorcycles are and we can
Speaker 1: help increase sales that way. Yeah, And in nine, sales
Speaker 1: were increasing and more than twenty two thousand motorcycles were
Speaker 1: being produced a year, which is not a huge jump
Speaker 1: from previous years if you look at today's production limits,
Speaker 1: but it's still something worth remarking on. Yes, and then
Speaker 1: the big number two punch hits. This is the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: So on October ninety nine, what we also call it
Speaker 1: Black Tuesday, that's when the stock market collapsed in the
Speaker 1: United States. Investors offloaded a collective sixteen million shares across
Speaker 1: all companies. And this was the first real, big, major
Speaker 1: event of what we call the Great Depression. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen thirty nine that historians would say the
Speaker 1: United States truly recovered from the Great Depression. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to fall, it's a lot harder to climb
Speaker 1: back up, This is true. And to make things work.
Speaker 1: This depression was way more than just a problem for
Speaker 1: the United States. It was a worldwide problem. The US
Speaker 1: experienced it early, but other nations followed suit, and a
Speaker 1: lot of foreign countries were starting to create very high
Speaker 1: import taxes as a way to generate money for the governments,
Speaker 1: but in another way to help kind of uh slow
Speaker 1: down imports and rely more on internal resources. Right, So,
Speaker 1: seeing import taxes go as high as sometimes fifty hurt
Speaker 1: companies like Harley Davidson that were really dependent on those
Speaker 1: overseas markets. And when Jonathan says hurt, he means really hurt,
Speaker 1: because their sales dropped to less than one fifth of
Speaker 1: what they had been prior to the Great Depression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a point where the company really was on
Speaker 1: the verge of bankruptcy. And so what do you do
Speaker 1: when your company is in these gyres straits. Well, one
Speaker 1: thing you do is you tightened the belt, you lay
Speaker 1: people off. Yeah, so a lot of people lost jobs.
Speaker 1: People who kept their jobs, some of them saw their
Speaker 1: wages getting cut, their hours getting cut, their work getting
Speaker 1: cut because company slowed production. Yeah. There was an account
Speaker 1: I read by a guy named Joseph Borgan, who was
Speaker 1: a He worked in the riveting department of Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: during this time, and he said that there was one
Speaker 1: two week period where his take home pay wass for
Speaker 1: two weeks work. I mean, in the twenties and thirties,
Speaker 1: that's a little more than it is now, but still
Speaker 1: not nearly enough, not not enough for it to be
Speaker 1: like two weeks worth of wages. And their production fell
Speaker 1: eighty one from nine to nine thirty three, that period
Speaker 1: of the most severe downturn in the Great Depression. Industrial
Speaker 1: production in the United States in general, across all industries
Speaker 1: fell by So this was not something unique to Harley Davidson.
Speaker 1: It was affecting lots of companies. Some were able to
Speaker 1: manage a little better than others because they were making
Speaker 1: necessities that people absolutely required, but no one was doing great.
Speaker 1: The gross domestic product for the entire country fell. Unemployment
Speaker 1: was hitting rates of up to It was not good. No,
Speaker 1: it was not good. So Harley Davidson did a few
Speaker 1: things to get through this. Uh. They started selling their
Speaker 1: blueprints and their tools and their machinery to Japan so
Speaker 1: that Japan could create its own motorcycles. Yes, they were
Speaker 1: marketed under the Riku oh yes line r I k
Speaker 1: U O Yes. And And the other thing Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: did is because they had built up dis good reputation
Speaker 1: with the military and the police departments. Is they still
Speaker 1: maintain those relationships and maintained sales to those particular areas. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that helped a little bit. Now, the common consumer
Speaker 1: might not be able to buy a motorcycle, but the
Speaker 1: government still was and they were still doing this work
Speaker 1: with Japan as far into it as the mid to
Speaker 1: late thirties, although as tensions were building leading up to
Speaker 1: World War Two that that relationship would break down. Uh.
Speaker 1: The military designs were different, obviously from the consumer ones.
Speaker 1: It turns out that if you are designing a vehicle
Speaker 1: for the military, it has to be a little more
Speaker 1: heavy duty than your average consumer vehicle. Yes. Well, even
Speaker 1: though in World War One motorcycles were kind of designed
Speaker 1: for combat, and in World War Two they were designed
Speaker 1: for like career services. You still need something that's reliable.
Speaker 1: And by nine pretty much every single US motorcycle company
Speaker 1: that was not Indian or Harley Davidson ceases to exist.
Speaker 1: The Great Depression was a large part of that, But
Speaker 1: there was also the issue of which motorcycles were seen
Speaker 1: as being the best performers, right, because all those races
Speaker 1: were frequently being won by people who were either on
Speaker 1: an Indian motorcycle or a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Now, Harley
Speaker 1: did sweep a lot of races. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: reiterate that. Yeah, all though part of that might be
Speaker 1: because Harley Davidson also had a reputation for brow beating
Speaker 1: motorcycle uh organizations, racing organizations to tweak the rules in
Speaker 1: such a way that it favored Harley Davidson motorcycles over
Speaker 1: other him Indian motorcycles. Yeah, so some of the practices
Speaker 1: in order to stay a float and now granted, you know,
Speaker 1: desperate times, but still kind of shady. Uh So they
Speaker 1: continued to encourage bike clubs to promote motorcycles and try
Speaker 1: and boost sales and they pressured the American Motorcycle Association
Speaker 1: to tweek those rules. I was just talking about, uh,
Speaker 1: And it's interesting I read one report that said, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: the Great Depression forced Harley Davidson to reevaluate how it
Speaker 1: would market motorcycles to h the American market because this
Speaker 1: this sequence the Great Depression and World War Two meant
Speaker 1: that a law of their overseas markets were cut off them. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so they realized that we can't as a company
Speaker 1: really survive if that is how we turn our focus.
Speaker 1: Because when things go south, are are revenue source is
Speaker 1: completely gone, we need to look how how can we
Speaker 1: market more to Americans as well? Yeah? Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: a lot of those companies that would have otherwise stuck
Speaker 1: around got scared off by the Great Depression. Some of
Speaker 1: them were worried that the downturn was gonna last eight
Speaker 1: ten years, whereas the downturn lasted four years, and then
Speaker 1: the Great Depression itself lasted a full decade. Because the
Speaker 1: recovery period was so long that some people were thinking
Speaker 1: things were just gonna keep getting bad, they were not
Speaker 1: going to get better. And so you had a lot
Speaker 1: of business owners saying all right, we're just gonna bail now,
Speaker 1: we're getting out the industry and we're going to focus
Speaker 1: on doing something else that is got a better chance
Speaker 1: of success. Yeah. Yeah, but Harley didn't. UM. Two, they
Speaker 1: created a three wheel server car, which, unlike their previous
Speaker 1: three beal vehicles, UM, wasn't meant to carry large amounts
Speaker 1: of product. Basically, yeah, it wasn't a delivery service. No. No,
Speaker 1: it was like a tricycle. It was like a police tricycle.
Speaker 1: But it was really popular with the police. In fact,
Speaker 1: they used them until nineteen seventies. Yep. I love the
Speaker 1: note here about the reverse controls. Why Why did these
Speaker 1: vehicles have reverse controls? Um? So that meter maids could
Speaker 1: drive the car and mark cars for ticketing at the
Speaker 1: same time. Yeah, making a little chalk mark on the
Speaker 1: wheel so that you can test it when you come
Speaker 1: back and see if the car has been moved or not. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fun times, I mean pretty now. Ninety three the last
Speaker 1: year of the downturn. Remember, just a few years earlier
Speaker 1: they had produced twenty two thousand bikes. Three was a
Speaker 1: very different story. Yeah, they only produced four thousand bikes,
Speaker 1: but they did start producing more interesting bikes. Uh. They
Speaker 1: started adding an eagle image to their gas tank and
Speaker 1: made their lettering just a little bit fancier and started
Speaker 1: uh selling their bikes in a variety of colors. Yep.
Speaker 1: And they had done some custom jobs before, but now
Speaker 1: they were starting to look at that more seriously. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they were also still doing well on the racist
Speaker 1: circuit at that time, right, yes, yes, uh. And they
Speaker 1: also came out with a popular bike in six, the
Speaker 1: e L which was nicknamed the Knucklehead because I had
Speaker 1: these two little valves at these little caps on it
Speaker 1: that looked like a little knuckles, little knuckles. Um. And
Speaker 1: it was twice as powerful, and I had an all
Speaker 1: new suspension and tank and frame, and people really like
Speaker 1: this model. It was. It was a very popular model
Speaker 1: for a while, and it bumped their production back up
Speaker 1: to ten thousand bikes a year, still less than half
Speaker 1: of where they had been, but they were starting to
Speaker 1: recover a little bit. Yes. And also as a sort
Speaker 1: of a side effect of the Great Oppression, you started
Speaker 1: seeing things like the gas prices were dropping, and so
Speaker 1: it made motorcycling a little less of a luxury because
Speaker 1: you didn't have to, you know, the the gas prices
Speaker 1: weren't exorbitant, so that helped a little bit. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: if you could afford a motorcycle and you're unemployed because
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression, because everybody's laying people off, and
Speaker 1: you've got all this time to spend, well, now you
Speaker 1: can afford gas at ly. Now. The real thing that
Speaker 1: helped Harley Davidson turn everything around had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with all of those marketing campaigns. Really had to do
Speaker 1: with with world politics, something that Harley Davidson had not
Speaker 1: played into at all, and it would turn out to
Speaker 1: be what really saved the company. And we'll tell you
Speaker 1: all about that just a second, but first let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So, the
Speaker 1: big event that really helps Harley Davidson come back from
Speaker 1: the brink, it was on this sort of shaky recovery ground.
Speaker 1: The big thing that helped them was actually World War Two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: During during World War Two, they shipped almost ninety thousand
Speaker 1: military motorcycles overseas called w L as the w L A,
Speaker 1: also known as the Liberator. This is my favorite Harley
Speaker 1: Davidson design by far. It was if I were to
Speaker 1: own a Harley Davidson, I would want either a w
Speaker 1: l A or a replica of a w I mean
Speaker 1: it is, you know, and a lot of people after
Speaker 1: the war have had the same opinion as you. You know,
Speaker 1: they were they were tough, they were sturdy. They have
Speaker 1: a little bit of a retro field now and they're
Speaker 1: still pretty swank, So I don't blame you. I even
Speaker 1: like the olive drab version of like you don't even
Speaker 1: need to paint it up for me. So they ended
Speaker 1: up actually winning awards for the design of their motor cycles.
Speaker 1: They were very dependable, and they were very useful for
Speaker 1: the military, and they're pretty boss. They are pretty boss.
Speaker 1: They had some cool things that were specific for military use,
Speaker 1: like heavy duty racks, secondary black outlining, and fork mounted
Speaker 1: machine gun scabbards. Would you want one with all that?
Speaker 1: I don't need all. Don't donate the scabbards. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they pretty much catered only to the military by two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so much so that each civilian dealer just got one
Speaker 1: new bike that year in ninety two, and people had
Speaker 1: to start recycling their pistons to get replacement parts. And
Speaker 1: like I said, World War two is the real reason
Speaker 1: that Indian and Harley Davidson were able to survive past
Speaker 1: the Great Depression when so many of their contemporary could
Speaker 1: not do that, when so many other companies folded. A
Speaker 1: few companies tried to make a go of it after
Speaker 1: the Great Depression downturn, like they actually started a motorcycle
Speaker 1: moy in between the Great Depression and World War Two.
Speaker 1: But Indian Harley Davidson were the ones that landed those
Speaker 1: military contracts. Right. So you get to World War Two
Speaker 1: and then the United States starts to ration various types
Speaker 1: of resources because they needed them for the war effort.
Speaker 1: And that meant that if you were a company and
Speaker 1: you were in manufacturing, you had to hope you could
Speaker 1: maybe transition to manufacturing stuff for the military, because chances
Speaker 1: are you were not going to get the raw materials
Speaker 1: you needed to make the stuff for regular civilians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the military already had their peeps, yep. So Indian
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson land those contracts. These other companies had not
Speaker 1: landed the contracts. They could not get access to the
Speaker 1: raw materials, and so a lot of them ended up
Speaker 1: going out of business because they literally couldn't get the
Speaker 1: stuff to build anymore. This is also around the same
Speaker 1: time that the Japanese company, the Sanchio Corporation, which was
Speaker 1: parent company to the rick U Motorcycle Company, cut ties
Speaker 1: with Harley Davidson because obviously the Japanese government and the
Speaker 1: United States government were at odds. Yes at this point, yes,
Speaker 1: but at least they had gotten Harley Davidson through the depression.
Speaker 1: Another thing that bolstered Harley Davidson after wars that when soldiers,
Speaker 1: when the soldiers were done with the war, they came
Speaker 1: back to the States and they were really fond of
Speaker 1: these motorcycles they were riding on, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to still ride on these motorcycles, so they
Speaker 1: all bought their own. Yeah, although of course the motorcycles
Speaker 1: for civilian use were very different from the ones that
Speaker 1: were made for the military. So we saw the rise
Speaker 1: of a couple of different types of culture in the
Speaker 1: motorcycle world that really came to fruition in the post
Speaker 1: World War Two era. One of those was the whole
Speaker 1: bobbers and choppers. So bobbers and choppers are altered motorcycles.
Speaker 1: You take a factory motorcycle, you take a motorcycle right
Speaker 1: off the factory line, and if you're talking about a
Speaker 1: bobber you're talking about someone who is removing pretty much
Speaker 1: anything that's not necessary to make the motorcycle go. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it strips it down to essentially the types of
Speaker 1: motorcycles that the soldiers were using during World War Two.
Speaker 1: So you're removing things like side view mirrors and wind
Speaker 1: screens and front brakes and stuff that a lot of
Speaker 1: us would consider to be pretty important components to your
Speaker 1: average cycle. Yeah. And you know it was really popular
Speaker 1: or mod these bikes for racing. Yes, but also it
Speaker 1: kind of brought to rise the outlaw motorcycle culture. Yes,
Speaker 1: because soldiers oftentimes have trouble reacclimating to civilian life, and
Speaker 1: so they get on their motorcycles and they go out
Speaker 1: and cross. They'd be a little row they'd be a
Speaker 1: little rowdy, sometimes more than a little raw. Yeah, they do.
Speaker 1: They do some some things they weren't supposed to, and
Speaker 1: this actually made Harley's reputation kind of go down. They
Speaker 1: suffered a little bit from this. This is also where
Speaker 1: we started to see like not just motorcycle clubs, but
Speaker 1: but actual biker gangs. Yeah. So you see the rise
Speaker 1: of various gangs that would become things like the Hell's Angels,
Speaker 1: and you would get this outlaw biker culture that associated
Speaker 1: motorcycles with illegal activities. Yes, everything everything from violent crime
Speaker 1: to uh to drug distribution, that kind of stuff. It
Speaker 1: was a real pr problem, yes, yes, so much so
Speaker 1: that Harley had to start subcontracting work for GM to
Speaker 1: make up for that hit in their revenue. But the
Speaker 1: company today is still churning out motorcycles. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: you know, I talked about earlier how more than fifty
Speaker 1: of their sales were in international markets, and by they
Speaker 1: had almost gotten back to that same space. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: their sales were overseas last year. Yeah. And uh there
Speaker 1: are more than a thousand Harley clubs around the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they do a lot of charity work, which is
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Yep. The average buyer age, I love this.
Speaker 1: The from article The rich buyer age of Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: is so I still got a few years, Ariel before
Speaker 1: I have to go out. You do, or you could
Speaker 1: do it now, but you have a few years. Throw
Speaker 1: the average off. I gotta I gotta be respectful of
Speaker 1: the average. So lately, Harley has been having a few
Speaker 1: issues again with government policies, terrificios and things like that,
Speaker 1: and just the US market has been suffering some losses
Speaker 1: in general as people look for more pragmatic, environmentally friendly
Speaker 1: ways to travel. There are new motivators for vehicle choice,
Speaker 1: and that has taken a chunk out of the potential
Speaker 1: consumer base for Harley david Yes, and Harley's plans on
Speaker 1: how to regain this market have been kind of vague,
Speaker 1: but we do know that they're working on electronic motorcycle.
Speaker 1: Originally they were talking about kind of releasing it in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and that's been pushed back to it's probably
Speaker 1: just to get it nice and perfect. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: know that there's been talk about Harley Davidson relocating headquarters
Speaker 1: in the wake of things like tariffs. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you have a company that has a lot of its
Speaker 1: business overseas and that's where it's healthy market is, then
Speaker 1: that's a real issue. And there's been a pretty public
Speaker 1: battle there has been. I mean, I would say that
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson is on the brink again. In fact, we
Speaker 1: may have to do another episode about Harley Davidson and
Speaker 1: the modern era in the future. But it was interesting
Speaker 1: looking into this. Motorcycles are one of those things that
Speaker 1: I've always thought were super cool. But I just can't
Speaker 1: imagine that I would ever own one, not for any
Speaker 1: negative reason. I just it's hard for me to think
Speaker 1: of myself as being cool enough to ride a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: I mean, coolness shouldn't factor into it. It shouldn't, but
Speaker 1: it does. But you know what would be super cool?
Speaker 1: What would be super cool? If we wrap up this episode,
Speaker 1: let's do that. That's it for Harley Davidson. Join us
Speaker 1: for a totally new conversation about a totally different company
Speaker 1: that faced the Brink. I have been Jonathan Strickland and
Speaker 1: I have been aerial casting. Bye bye. If you would
Speaker 1: like to learn more about what we've talked about, as
Speaker 1: well as keep track of all of our episodes, make
Speaker 1: sure you visit our website at The Brink Podcast dot
Speaker 1: show