Driving Into 2019: Harley Davidson Isn't Running Out Of Gas

As America’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer turns 115 years old, it doesn’t strain the art of metaphor too heavily to say the company is at a crossroads. Harley-Davidson makes a lot of money offof its past, but the future demands it must turn onto a strange, unpaved road.

- John Scott Lewinski

As America’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer turns 115 years old, it doesn’t strain the art of metaphor too heavily to say the company is at a crossroads. Harley-Davidson makes a lot of money offof its past, but the future demands it must turn onto a strange, unpaved road.

While most of its overall income still flows from older, well-heeled riders who can afford H-D’s comfort-centric bikes, developing demographics and cultural trends make it clear Harley must evolve or become roadkill. So, the company needs to please its aging, dwindling but well-funded crop of veteran customers with one hand while grooming new products and concepts to attract younger riders with the other.

Harley-Davidson’s 115th anniversary celebration kicked off earlier this year in Prague for the European faithful, but the party came home to Harley’s hometown of Milwaukee the last week of August. Early autumn weather greeted the Orange and Black as it offered the assembled motorcycle media a firsthand look at just how it plans to manage its temporal juggling act between the steady money of the past and economic demands of days inbound.

A party took over a city of more than 600,000 people with a mix of denim, leather and rattling engine noise. From the shores of Lake Michigan to the domain of dairy farms, special events and concerts brought riders from across the United States, and around the world, together to celebrate the metal and memories of their two-wheeled love affairs.