The Harley-Davidson Motor Company, known simply as Harley-Davidson, is an American motorcycle manufacturer founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the turn of the 20th century. Founded in 1903 by William S. Harley, Arthur Davidson, Walter Davidson, and William A. Davidson, the company originally began in 1901 when Harley drew up plans for a small 116 cc engine designed for use in a regular pedal-bicycle frame. Harley, along with his childhood friend Arthur Davidson and his brothers, spent the next few years working on their motor-bike in a Milwaukee machine shop. Upon its completion in 1903, Harley and the Davidson brothers discovered their prototype was unable to climb the surrounding hills and began work on a new and improved second-generation machine. The first real Harley-Davidson motorcycle featured a bigger 28-pound 405 cc engine and an advanced loop-frame pattern, taking it out of the motorized bicycle category and into the future of motorcycle design. The rest, as they say, is history.
One of two American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression, Harley-Davidson has manufactured solely heavyweight motorcycles designed for highway cruising since 1977 and is one of the world’s largest and most iconic brands with a market cap of $12.97 billion–licensing of the brand and logo accounted for $40 million of the company’s net revenue in 2010. The famous “bar and shield” logo is one of the most recognizable logos in the world and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most memorable logos ever created. Six years after the Davidson brother’s Aunt Jane Davidson painted “Harley-Davidson Motor Company” on the door of the team’s workshop, the famed orange and black “bar and shield” logo was introduced. Trademarked a year later, the logo is comprised of a shield shield traversed by a horizontal bar with a custom typeface, carrying a powerful and rugged feel, and has remained relatively unchanged ever since–excluding a few special anniversary logo editions. To this day, no one knows who designed the Harley-Davidson logo.
Harley-Davidson motorcycles, or Harleys, are classic American bikes that represent both a rich history and a sense of freedom, while the tradition of heavy customization even gave rise to a new chopper style. The brand itself has long been associated with the biker sub-culture, including outlaw motorcycle clubs and one percenters made famous in films like The Wild One and television shows like Sons of Anarchy. William S. Harley and the Davidson brothers were inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame in 2004. Check out the picture of the original Harley-Davidson “bar and shield” logo along with today’s iconic logo below.
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