Customer Reviews

Harley-Davidson: Design and Development:1903-To the Present

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As a technical officer for the local HOG chapter I read HD books and magazines for over 25 years. I frequently visit Amazon.com to see if there are any interresting new books on the market. And even though sometimes a few pages can be seen online you can only have a good book impression after it arrived at home. And normally it does, but not this time.
So I just got this book recently. And as always I started nosing through the book, not reading all the lines but first the picture describtions. After a few minutes I already found several 'big' technical mistakes. Pictured Twincam Fat Boy and Road King is listed as an Evolution powered bike (?) A Heritage Softail is called an Electra Glide, even though in the same lines the softail suspention is mentioned (?) The 80 CID Shovelhead has 10 cooling fins on the cylinder instead of 9. This is also not true, because the 74 CID V-twin has 10. Just count them and you know, right? The belt drive runs on the right side of a 80 CID big twin Harley. I never seen one, but the Sportster. The 80 CID Evolution makes 58 hp at 7200 (!) rpm. Everybody knows that the V-twin revs die at engine speed about less over 5000 (Twin cam some more). The Twin cam has its name after the rocker covers who resemble the overhead camshaft layout. Are we talking V-Rod here or what? Every 80/88 CID V-twin has the cam below and the valves are actuated by the pushrods. Evolution big twins have ONE cam and the Twincam has TWO cams, hence the name. These mistakes go on and on. So I had a real quick thought about the reliability of the rest of the describtions.
It seems to me that you can write a book after reading some recent sales brochures. Oups, did I say that.
One thing is OK and that are the pictures.
I am not telling you that such a book should 100% serve the needs of technical die-hards like myself, but telling fact that are not true over and over again, goes too far. I'm sorry. It doesn't happen much that I regret purchasing a new Harley book, but where can I have my refund?