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Informationen zum Autor Allan Girdler is a well-known motorcycle and automotive journalist and former editor of Cycle World and Road and Track magazines. He has authored several books! including Harley-Davidson XR-750 ! The Harley-Davidson and Indian Wars ! and American Road Race Specials . Klappentext Things got a little weird in the American motorcycle industry after World War II. People hungered for new motorcycles. But on rare occasions a manufacturer produced a machine that nobody wanted: the Harley-Davidson Model K. It had most of the features buyers wanted in a modern machine, but it lacked perhaps the most important technological upgrade: a modern overhead-valve valve-train design. Zusammenfassung Go on a 60-year ride with Harley-Davidson's Sportster Things got a little weird in the American motorcycle industry after World War II. People hungered for new motorcycles! buying just about everything manufacturers could build. But on rare occasions a manufacturer produced a machine that nobody wanted. Such was the case with the Harley-Davidson Model K. The Model K had most of the features buyers wanted in a modern machine! like hand-operated clutches! foot-operated shifters! and cool-running aluminum heads! but it lacked perhaps the most important technological upgrade: a modern overhead-valve valve-train design. The Model K retained the antiquated side-valve design because of arcane AMA racing rules written when Harley-Davidson and Indian competed head-to-head on American racetracks! but by 1952 Indian was on its last legs. This should have made the Model K a massive sales success. What nobody counted on was the British bike invasion. Thanks to their modern overhead-valve engines! the lightweight British bikes humiliated the side-valve Harleys on the track and on the street. Upgrades to the Model K didn't help; Harley finally relented and introduced a new overhead-valve middleweight for the 1957 model year. Dubbed the Sportster! it was everything the Model K was not. More importantly! it was faster than the British competition. Thus began the Sportster's sixty-year reign. Harley-Davidson Sportster: Sixty Years tells the complete Sportster story. Noted Sportster expert Allen Girdler covers all the bikes--the XLCH! Café Racer! XR1000! XLX! 883! Iron! Forty-Eight! Seventy-Two! and Nightster--that have made the Sportster one of the most iconic motorcycles on earth. ...
