Amazon.com
Think Harley-Davidson: the unmistakable rumble of the V-Twin engine, the chrome, the longstanding image of the company and its customers. Though the Japanese have surpassed Harley-Davidson in about every aspect of motorcycle technology, the Milwaukee machines have something that other bikes can never have: mystique.
Hog Heaven: The Story of the Harley-Davidson Empire traces the marque from its l903 beginnings (a primitive moped with no clutch or transmission that had the power going to the back wheel via a dangerous-looking exposed leather belt) to its success as part of mechanized warfare in WWII to the disastrous buyout by AMF, a company better known for its bowling balls and golf carts. Toward the end of the AMF period, Harley-Davidson was barely afloat and turning out inferior-quality products; when the parent company went looking for buyers, the employees banded together and took the nameplate back. The company's comeback is one of the great success stories of American business, and in the year 2000 the corporation can't fill orders fast enough to meet demand. Its modern image has grown from the days when only outlaws rode the machines; today they're popular with accountants, attorneys, celebrities, doctors, and all those who can afford them and have a love of the open road.
--Jerry Renshaw
Product Description
Just a few brief years ago, Harley-Davidson was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and extinction.We'll see how they got to that point, fought to survive and finally prospered as we take our cameras into the Harley world. It's an American story about four young men who believed in the future and thought they'd put the world on two-wheels. In 1903, the three Davidson brothers and William Harley, launched this now global marketing wonder in a ten-by-twelve foot shed behind the Davidson family's home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For years they struggled to become the best motorcycle manufacturers in America. One by one their competitors fell away. By 1953, they were the only company still building motorcycles in the U.S. But motorcycling was developing a bad reputation. Films like, THE WILD ONE, starring Marlon Brando, stigmatized the riders by showing them as fist-fighting, hard-drinking outlaws. The 1960s saw EASY RIDER hit the screens and bikers once again were cast as outsiders. At the same time a new rival, Honda, was selling its little bikes as the kind of machine on which you'd meet the nicest people. Not only were the people supposed to be nicer, the bikes actually were well built and reliable. Like US automakers, Harley-Davidson had to overcome its quality problems or risk going out of business. They had a loyal following but that wouldn't last forever. In one of the most remarkable turn-arounds in American business, Harley-Davidson reinvented itself while keeping what its fans held most dear. Harleys are better than ever and showing the world that America can compete in the global marketplace. It's an icon and a success story but to most it's an adventure.
