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A biker rides his Harley-Davidson during a parade in June 2018. (REUTERS / Fabian Bimmer)
Go hunting for the original Harley-Davidson story, you will end up in black smoke and the DIY workshop of the early 1900's. But the real starting point for understanding the American motorcycle manufacturer Modern is May 6, 1987 – the day the Gipper blessed the mark.
Dressed in a light colored suit while he was bouncing on a platform of the company's factory in York, Pennsylvania, President Ronald Reagan was standing in front of a stuck plant with chain workers, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. He was there to deliver a limited victory speech to the government.
Five years earlier, Harley-Davidson was in a corporate tumble due to intense competition from Japanese manufacturers dominating the US market. In 1983, the Reagan administration imposed five years of limited rights on Japanese motorcycles. The assistance helped the Harley-Davidson management to re-equip the company. Now in 1987, they were ready to resume Japanese competition alone. The company was the only brand of American motorcycles to stay upright.
"American workers do not need to hide from anyone," Reagan told the crowd, the Times reported. But the president, a hawk of free trade, drew an interesting line in his speech. While praising the "room for maneuver", the rates allowed the company to get back on its feet, and it argued against other protections.
"Our trade laws should work to stimulate growth and trade, not to extinguish it," Reagan said. "And that's what's at the heart of our fair trade policy: open foreign markets, do not close ours." The idea of resorting to mandatory reprisals and ending the presidential discretion in the application of our commercial laws is evolving towards a policy that invites, even encourages, commercial wars. "
The workers – many still fearing what international competition would do for their work later – were silent, according to the Times.
Now, the famous American brand is again the target of presidential attention – this time with a very different intensity. On Tuesday, President Trump lambasted the company following Harley-Davidson's decision to move some of its production overseas due to the aggressive commercial policy of the administration. As the Washington Post reported, Trump 's tariffs for steel and aluminum will cost Harley – Davidson $ 20 million, the company says. Retaliation fees could cost $ 45 million more.
In a series of tweets, the president castigated the company, claiming that Harley-Davidson – a brand that he adopted in the past – only used the rates as an excuse to take jobs away US. According to Trump, bicycles should never be built in another country, ever!
"If they move, look, it will be the beginning of the end – they surrendered, they resigned!" Wrote Trump. "The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!"
Trump's anger at a typical American brand is remarkable. Much of the story of Harley-Davidson – a company started by immigrant sons in what we now call the Rust Belt – is shrouded in the same preoccupations that dominate the White House , from trade wars and nationalism to celebrity and the image. -interview.
In the late 1800s, motorcycles were a gag.
As Darwin Holmstrom writes in his book "Harley-Davidson: The Complete Story", gas bicycles were heavy at the turn of the century because of the size of the engines – more a "carnival monster" than the real mode of transport, according to Holmstrom. In 1895, a contractor named Edward Joel Pennington exhibited his curious "Motor Cycle" on a Milwaukee street. The neighbors rushed to watch. Holmstrom speculates on two 14-year-old people who lived nearby: William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson.
In the early 1900s, lighter engines made motorcycles a more feasible product. Harley and Davidson worked on designs and built bikes, eventually selling their first models in 1903. According to the company, the two tinkered their first designs in a 10-foot by 15-foot wooden shed behind Davidson House. "Harley-Davidson Motor Company" was scribbled on the door of the shop.
Demand was sufficient in 1906 for friends to build a small factory in their Milwaukee neighborhood, writes Holmstrom. A year later, they formally incorporated the company bearing their names.
Harley-Davidson showed early on that the company could easily move from one identity to another.
As Yahoo reported in March, motorcycles were originally designed as a primary mode of transportation for runners. Starting in 1908, however, Henry Ford's affordable T model began to dominate this market. Harley-Davidson has rotated, placing their products not as your ride at work or for daily errands, but a leisure craft. According to Yahoo, the company has been working to start riding clubs for homeowners. In the 1920s, motorcycles were another activity of the rich.
A second market helped Harley-Davidson survive the depression: the army. The business cycles had been used very early by various armies. According to Yahoo, one of the reasons Harley-Davidson survived the late 1930s was military expeditions to Japan. When World War II tore the world apart, the company was producing bikes for the Allies.
The post-war years were when Harley-Davidson fully entered the identity that is now completely bonded to the brand: the outlaw.
Motorcycle clubs – favored by veterans of the Second World War hungry for an adrenaline rush after the fight – began in the 1950s. Thanks to the screen in movies like "The Wild One "from 1953 and" Easy Rider "from 1969, as well as reports on leather chaos related to bands like Hell's Angels, the myth of the unsuitable Harley-ridden, anti-social stuck in social consciousness. Whether dreaded or revered, Harley-Davidson pilots have become American aircraft.
And yet, the outlaw image would put Harley-Davidson on the road to economic disaster. Honda's own motorcycles have been portrayed in commercials as a clean and pleasant alternative to the Harley-Davidson social threat. In 1959, the Japanese manufacturer sold only 1,700 bicycles in the United States. In 1970, after Harley-Davidson became the bad boy on the highway, Honda sold 500,000 copies.
Other overseas competitors have also begun to pile on the US market. John Davidson, then president of Harley-Davidson, a descendant of one of the founders of the company, would finally blame companies like Honda for "dumping" products in the United States.
"The Japanese set production schedules much higher than the mid-1970s demand for their products," said Davidson. "They chose the United States to unload their surplus production."
The mismanagement of the company did not help the Harley-Davidson business at the time.
"We were being wiped out by the Japanese because they were better managers," Vaughn Beals told Fortune in 1989. "It was not robotics, nor culture, morning gymnastics nor company songs. business and paid attention to detail. "
But the company also performed another clever identity change in the 1970s, which would help it refurbish its image bold, red, white and blue.
Fueled by the patriotic energy that permeates the country for the Bicentennial, the company released in 1976 a "Liberty Edition" bike sporting patriotic colors, the Statue of Liberty, and "Born Free" inscribed on the frame, a reported Yahoo.
The new line suggests that the tenacity and nervousness of the brand are not antisocial values but inherent to the American identity. This association was fully at the time Reagan encouraged the resurgence of the company in 1987 after the dismantling of tariffs.
"As you have shown again, America is somewhere special," Reagan told the crowd of workers. "We are on the path to unprecedented prosperity in this country – and we will get there on a Harley!"
The last years of Harley-Davidson have been tough, leaving the company vulnerable to global chaos that Trump's trade policy could trigger. As reported by BikeBandit.com, bikers are becoming increasingly gray: in 2016, the median age of US motorcyclists is 47 years old. In 1990, it was 32. In January, the company's sales dropped by 6.7% in 2016 Sales in the United States fell by 8.5%.
Yet, the iconography of the brand has withstood bad sales before. It is one of the few American companies to be so firmly attached to national identity.
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