A Harley-Davidson with Bicycle accessories can trigger your trigger or snag your rope, but in our case it was almost always the former. If it’s done right, there’s something blatantly bad about a Milwaukee rocket that looks like it’s 100 mph stationary, all without losing its rusty old iron character.
In terms of performance, there’s no disputing this 1983 Harley-Davidson XR1000 with a history of competing in the Battle of the Twins. This rare race car goes on sale this week, as part of the Mecum Glendale auction.
At full speed on this XR1000, you have to reverse a sensational Harley road Flat Tracker XR750, arguably one of the most successful racing bikes ever built. After Harley fixed the engine in ’72, the XR750 became a dominant force in flat road racing for decades. HD loyalists have watched the likes of Mert Lawill slide around the oval, and Evil Knievel gallop over the bus, and they can’t help but want a piece of the action.
While much of Harley’s resources are focused on building the upcoming Evolution engine, Harley’s snowmobile workshop has begun modifying a regular 1000 cc XL Sportster to incorporate a bit of flavor avid XR750 enthusiasts. The result is 1983 XR1000.
In fact, it’s little more than an XL Sportster with an XR750-style cylinder head, twin Dell’Orto carburetors and a high-mounted exhaust on the B side. In theory, an XR750 for the street, The XR1000 really shined on the big banks in the Battle of the Twins.
The line was born in the 1980s as a response to the growing dominance of four-cylinder engines in motorsport racing, bringing solace to cool, large displacement bikes. by British, European and American air on the pavement. Harley’s entries are the new XR1000 on paper, but could be more aptly described as overly boring versions of the XRTT . racing bike.
The most successful of these entries is a hero that can hardly be called Lucifer’s Hammer. After catching fire at Daytona in 1973, the factory road race car was stored for 10 years before being rebuilt for racing in the Battle of the Twins. Despite having little or no sidewalk experience, road racer Gene Church piloted Lucifer’s Hammer to win three Battle of the Twins championships.
In a symbolic exchange, the Ducati factory team congratulated Church for hitting 156 mph in Daytona in 1986, but Church simply replied that something was wrong with one. in carburetors. It sounds like fancy talk—that’s until they fixed the problem and hit 170 mph.
Lucifer’s Hammer is a well-documented machine, but the XR1000 is available here at Mecum .’s Glendale Auction is a bit more mysterious. Mecum details that the bike was raced during the Battle of the Twins from 1983 to 1986, with Rick Ranno riding. From there it was sold to Sweden and raced by champion ice racer Posa Serenius in Linöping in 2007. Compared to a period photo we were able to dig up, we assume this bike has been restored by Ranno’s V-Twins cycle The Liver Store.
Back in 2019, Mecum sold Ranno XR for $6,600. For that kind of money, we should all raise our oars. [Via Mecum Auctions]
