So, read a newspaper article of the day in the midst of the Pancho Villa Expedition. As it turns out, WWI was not H-D’s first military contract. That goes to the military expedition on the Mexican border. Sent to the conflict by President Woodrow Wilson, Army General John J. Pershing immediately requested Harley-Davidson motorcycles in order to fend off Mexican revolutionary, Villa, and his men. Then H-D president, Walter Davidson, worked closely with the War Department in supplying the motorcycles, as well as training the men to operate them.
Some motorcycles were equipped with machine gun-mounted sidecars. When the U.S. entered WWI a year later, the War Department put their order in. Twenty-thousand H-D motorcycles. Fun Fact: Though Pancho Villa is commonly pictured on horseback, Villa relied on motorcycle transportation as well. His brand of choice was not a Harley, he rode an Indian.
Harley and the Davidsons
It was William Harley who first came up with the idea, who went to engineering school and designed the Indian-modeled V-Twin, so, it was agreed that the Harley name ought to come first. But it was Harley’s friend, Arthur Davidson, 20-years-old at the time, who jumped in feet first on their boyhood dream to motorize the labor-intensive grind of bicycling.
The friends enlisted the help of Arthur’s brothers. Walter Davidson, a railroad machinist, was lured back home by the prospect of riding one of the new inventions. Finally, William Davidson, the eldest of the three who was a tool-room foreman for a railroad shop, pitched in too. They built the first motorcycles out of the wooden shed, but soon had to build a larger factory in town. Production grew by leaps and bounds and soon the four partners had to hire 35 employees.
The Bicycle Model
You read that right. H-D came out with a standard bicycle in an effort to lure young boys into the trademark mode of locomotion. It was from 1917 to 1921 that the company offered the Harley-Davidson Model 318. The product was costly. The Davis Sewing Machine Co. built the bicycles with parts shipped from Dayton, Ohio. After four years of paltry sales, the product was dropped from its line.
An advertisement of the day pictures two boys whizzing by on bicycles with another boy, forlorn, watching them ride by. “Gee, wish I had one,” reads the ad. It goes on: “What sport a fellow can have with a good bicycle! Cross-country spins with ‘the bunch!’ Hunting and fishing trips! Too bad every boy can’t have a Harley-Davidson Bicycle.”
There’s a Reason it’s Called a Hog
Finally. Harley Owners Group (HOG) is a bona fide Harley club, including member benefits, for anyone who purchases a new Harley-Davidson. HOG, established by the company in 1983, was the marketing department’s attempt to connect with riders and build the Harley-Davidson culture. The acronym plays into the motorcycle’s history, there’s a reason it’s called a Hog, but it’s not because it’s a corporate biker’s club. In other HOG-related news, back in 2006, the company was able to change its NYSE stock ticker symbol to HOG. Shares immediately spiked to a record high of $74.93. And then the excitement cooled off. Today, a HOG stock is trading at around $40 a share.
The truth is, the Hog hoopla harks back to Harley-Davidson’s racing days. During the 1910s through to the 1920s, a burly group of farm boys led the H-D racing team to prominence. Otherwise known as The Wrecking Crew, these fearsome hog farmers made a habit of winning. To celebrate, they began taking victory laps with one of their pigs each time their team won. The pig became their mascot and they became known as the Hog Boys. The Hog comes from strength and prowess straddling power and speed. And it comes from the mark those American boys made on racing history.
The Green Omen
Green may be lucky for the Irish, but for the Hog, it’s a bad sign. No one knows exactly where the superstition came from, but bikers know that an olive-green painted motorcycle is bad luck. There are several theories. Most of them are associated with motorcycles used in WWI and WWII. Painted Army green and used for messaging and general transport along enemy lines, many men were killed delivering messages. Snipers routinely took out soldiers on motorcycles. Their ghosts apparently haunted the green painted machines. Perhaps it was PTSD-related?
Another issue with green-colored motorcycles is that since many of them that were used in WWII and then sold after the war, they were not in the best condition. Those Army-green motorcycles were unreliable, breaking down easily and becoming a symbol of bad luck. During the early racing days, Harleys lost too many Englishmen riding olive-green bikes. Engendering animosity, it gave those bikes a bad name. And, finally, perhaps green is just an unlucky color, with cultural significations of greed and jealousy. The superstitions were real, but they’ve been fading in recent years.