Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Revival : New But Old in Spirit
Harley-Davidson has released the first of a new series of bikes hinted at earlier in the year with unexplained images. The “Icons Collection” bikes pay tribute to significant motorcycles from the company’s past and will be available in limited, although in this case, relatively generous numbers. The first to pass through the tear in the space-time continuum is the Electra Glide Revival . The offering is aimed squarely at the 1969 Electra Glide – the first bike to wear the now classic and instantly identifiable batwing fairing that still graces, while now colour coordinated, the front of many touring bikes. Why the white bags and fairing? In 1969 that was the only colour you could get regardless of the colour of the bike on which they were fitted – plain white molded fibreglass. Today the bags and fairing are painted “Birch White” . Other nods to the past include the fender rails, saddlebag rails and a set of auxiliary lights but it is the single saddle mounted to an adjustable coil spring and shock absorber that truly gives the bike a look from an earlier period. The Electra Glide Revival gets the Milwaukee-Eight 114 upgrade, cruise control, an infotainment system with speakers and the RDRS suite of safety features. While you can return to an earlier styling era, you can not return to the prices of the period, the new, old-style Electra Glide Revival will be $35,299 in Canada. A total of 1500 will be produced.
There will be one or two models in the Icon series released annually and once they are sold that’s it for each bike. It will be interesting to see if the Icon program tackles any of the Dyna classics and how it would be approached now that the Dyna platform is no longer in the stable.