The Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Archive Collection

by Randy Leffingwell, Bill Davidson (Foreword), Randy Leffingwell (Photographer)

Who knew, one hundred years ago, that the freedom-loving, speed-hungry, cutting-edge motorcycle fanatics who founded Harley-Davidson were making history along with bikes?  The Harley-Davidson Collection, showcasing a century of bikes that shaped motorcycle history, brings that history to gleaming life in page after page of motorcycles beyond compare.  On the eve of the opening of the historic Harley-Davidson Museum, this book gives motorcycle enthusiasts an opportunity to pore over the bikes in the collection, and to linger over every detail that made Harley-Davidson such an icon of American open-road power and performance.  With exquisite, detailed photographs and histories of the hundred motorcycles in Harley’s collection, from serial number one built in 1903 to the latest low-slung Softail, high-revving VRSC, and touring models, the book captures the excitement of the best-known motorcycles in the world.  All that&r

408 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Photographer and writer, Randy Leffingwell, has more than 35 books in print, primarily on Americana subjects. These cover interests and areas as diverse as the American barn and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, California’s wine country and John Deere farm tractors. His awareness of and attraction to moving things goes back as far as he can remember, to the first Dinky Toys and Match Box cars his father and mother gave him. His practical introduction to real sports cars came several years later when his uncle took him to watch a weekend of racing events at Meadowdale International Raceway in suburban Chicago.

Throughout all this time, however, he imagined himself becoming an architect and his life-long admiration of buildings and design began with frequent trips to downtown Chicago. While in undergraduate studies at Kansas University in the architectural engineering sequence, he discovered photography, journalism, and reawakened an earlier passion for writing. He scarcely looked back as he shifted his major studies from architecture, through English, Art History, psychology, and finally to the William Allen White school of Journalism for a BS in photojournalism.

Following graduation from KU, Randy began a successful career as a photojournalist first at the Kansas City TIMES, then joining the staff of the Chicago SUN-TIMES where he remained for nine years. He then worked as associate editor at AutoWeek magazine in Detroit, before being hired by the Los Angeles TIMES as a writer/photographer. He worked for the TIMES for 11 years, covering everything from news stories to personality profiles to food features throughout Italy, film festivals in France and Utah, and live theater in London. It was, he says, a great job and a great place to work.

His latest project is a large history of Harley-Davidson for them. During this project, he photographed 193 motorcycles from the Harley-Davidson Archives Collection and he completed the corresponding text for the book in early April 2007. Release of this 432 page book tentatively is scheduled for early 2008.

Reviews

[Lorenzo Facchinetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book with stunning studio pictures of almost every Harley Davidson. Must have