American EXCESS
What is this you see before you? A 1977 Harley-Davidson FLH 1200 Electra Glide. An iconic name if ever there was one. AMF’s (American Machine and Foundry) range-topping heavyweight cruiser, which is obvious from the letters in the model designation: F, for the big ohv twin engine; L, for Hydra-glide style front forks and wide front tyre, and H, for Highway – which refers to the touring frame. Alternatively, you can find that FL stands for the heavyweight engine, in this case 74cui, and H is for hand shift (erm, I don’t think so), high performance (erm, again), or heavy duty (heavy, certainly). This confusion typifies Harley ownership; there is an established nomenclature and machine specification, but over the years there have been so many variations that the exact meaning / specification has become lost in the mists of time. Indeed, much like some of the British bike industry, the specification was a bit of a movable feast.
In 1977 H-D were not in a good state. They had been owned by AMF since 1969 – and folklore will tell you that the AMF years were a nadir for the quality of the products, that AMF neglected the company and didn’t understand the business of motorcycle manufacture. Echoes of the British bike industry, perhaps? Like most folklore there is some truth in the comments and quite a bit that is wrong. AMF sank a considerable amount of money into H-D, millions of dollars, and by doing so they tripled sales.
However, what they didn’t manage were profitable sales (business first rule: turnover is vanity, profit is sanity). While it is fashionable to blame AMF for H-D’s woes in the 70s it probably has much more to do
