August 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

August 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

Arguably the most famous Harley-Davidson is Peter Fonda’s ex-L.A.P.D. bike “Captain America,” from the film Easy Rider. Next may be the “Billy Bike” that the late Dennis Hopper also rode in the famous movie.

Among all other Harley’s probably one would rank the iconic World War II Harley-Davidson WLA “Liberator” as being up there as one of the most famous bikes of all time from Milwaukee. Recently I was contacted on Facebook (apparently not one of the 6 million that have left FB this year,)by a friend of mine that reported that his Harley dealership in another state, was giving away posters of the new “Captain America” movie that features our hero riding a WWII WLA. I believe he had to give blood (literally) to obtain this poster that I have found out, is rapidly becoming collectable. He was gloating somewhat knowing that Willie Hank would want one. Alas, I contacted a good friend of mine at a local HD dealership who said they had been (trying) to give those things away but nobody wanted them! Yep they were gone.

I found out that there were five WLA’s built for the film, and that at least one will go to the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. One will be auctioned off at Barrett-Jackson in the Fall for charity, and the others are spoken for as well. The character was created during WWII by Marvel comics as a patriotic super hero fighting the Axis. He rode a WLA Harley in the original magazine fighting for the forces of good. The trailers I’ve seen show the subdued backgrounds and clothing that one would expect of a country that was part of a world war. Also, the characters are all impossibly good-looking.   By the time you read this, we will know how the movie rates.

  As we’ve noted before, HD built around 88k WLA’s for the American military and other countries during the war. Russia received most of the exported WLA’s. There were different versions depending on the requirements for that branch of the military, or even a different country. A modified bike was built for the Navy, which was a model U. The Canadian Army had their requirements which when developed, was called a WLC. Strangely, Canadian WLC’s were not supplied with the famous machine gun scabbard that graces most WLA’s. WLA’s and its cousins were built from 1940 to 1952.

Basically the WLA was a civilian Flathead 45 that had its frame strengthened, the fenders moved out to provide clearance for mud and other debris. The electrical system was upgraded for the expected heavy load from radios, lights and other military equipment.

New for Harley was a hand clutch, foot shift that probably kept the founders of HD up at night since they considered that set-up not very Harley like. Only the British did this up to WWII. There was a skid plate a mere 4 inches off the ground since for some reason, Harley didn’t expect its bikes to go off-roading during war time. The WLA was capable of speeds only up to 68mph, built the machine was well built and according to reports, extremely reliable.    

Indian built military motorcycles for the U.S. during the war too. The company saw the first contracts coming in 1942 as sort of a breath of fresh air. The company had not recovered as the war started from the Depression and saw these contracts as a new start. However the famous mis-management at the top once again did no favors for the Wig-Wam. Harley decided that it would not completely ignore the civilian and police market during the war. Indian went full tilt in production and didn’t slow down (as HD did) when the end of the war was in sight.

Indian did not recover from WWII and lasted only until 1953. Harley was then the only American motorcycle manufacturer left standing in the mid 1950’s of the literally hundreds of start- up companies that began operations at the turn of the century.