Harley Davidson VL

 

At the end of the Great Depression, Harley-Davidson sold exclusive rights to the Sankyo Corporation to manufacture both Harley-Davidson motorcycles and spare parts in Japan.  As part of that agreement, Sankyo would continue to purchase motorcycles directly from Harley-Davidson until their factory was completed and ready for production.  It took Sankyo almost five years to complete their factory during which time Harley-Davidson sold them the VL pictured here for use by the Japanese Imperial Navy.

Harley Davidson VL introduced the new side-valve 40 hp, 74 cubic inch VL was in 1930 to replace the pocket-valve, inlet-over-exhaust engine in the old J model the company had been building saince 1911. Harley-Davidson boasted a number of improvements over the preceding model with the VL, but there were unfortunate teething problems that made themselves known just as the Great Depression was getting underway.

Harley advertisements of the time were quite ambitious in extolling the virtues of the VL, but early models had engines with a deficit of horsepower, a bad clutch, mufflers that clogged easily and frames that tended to break. William H. Davidson recalled a frantic trip made to New York in late 1929, when the factory team replaced mufflers, springs, valves and pistons on a team of new VLE models bought by the Buffalo Police Department. Police models included first-aid kit, a brass fire extinguisher and a handlebar crossbar that mounted a red light.