1911 Harley-Davidson Model 7D — Handmade Metal Model Motorcycle

The first Harley-Davidson V-twin — the engine layout the company has built for over a century since.

Handcrafted in iron and hand-painted, with the spindly bicycle-derived frame, sprung saddle, belt drive and exposed V-twin of a machine built when motorcycles were still essentially bicycles that had gone wrong.

Details

• Handcrafted iron frame and body
• Metal wheels that roll
• Hand-painted with applied detail
• Exposed engine, belt drive and saddle detail
• Ready to display

The machine

Harley-Davidson had tried a V-twin in 1909 and withdrawn it — the belt drive slipped and it was slower than the single it replaced. The 7D of 1911 was the fixed version: a 49.5 cubic inch V-twin with mechanical inlet valves and a belt tensioner, producing about 6.5 horsepower.

Only around 5,600 machines of all types left the factory that year. The company had been founded eight years earlier in a wooden shed in Milwaukee measuring 10 by 15 feet.