Is This Harley-Davidson’s New Midsize Cruiser?
It’s been one hell of an exciting 24 months for The Motor Company. First, it introduced a whole new engine, the Milwaukee-Eight, in 2016; then it entirely torched one line (Dyna), and revamped another (Softail). It introduced nine new cruiser models in 2018, with many more variants and a couple of new Sportsters in between. And, oh yeah—it’s celebrating its 115th anniversary.
If you think that’s dizzying, hold on to your horsepower. It turns out things were just getting started. Harley says it’s “iconic but not static,” and if it all comes to pass, there’s a lot going on this year for The Motor Company. In addition to a new electric bike, a new sportbike, and a new adventure bike, there’s also a new cruiser. Of course.
But basically, all we have to go on is this one photo. There’s no spec sheet, no in-depth PowerPoint presentation, so our guess is as good as yours. But what the hell, let’s take a look.
A dive into the photo shows a large radiator, so obviously there’s liquid-cooling to meet new emissions standards, and you can’t miss the two massive high-mounted pipes with a perfunctory heat shield sitting over the top tube, with super-chunky rubber taking up most of the rest of the photo frame. To us it looks like a Forty-Eight Special on steroids, but slammed and stretched. The cylinders and heads also look completely different from your standard-issue Milwaukee-Eight; could this be part of the new modular engine platform Harley has so vaguely mentioned in its press release? Maybe.
From this angle, the riding position looks like it might skew a bit clamshell-y, with forward controls, low handlebars, and as little fender coverage as possible to better show off that ridiculously chunky rubber. It’s like a Breakout met a Forty-Eight Special, punched it in the nose, and then hit the gym. This bike (no name yet) goes with a Fat Bob-style horizontally mounted and menacing LED lighting up front, and running just a single brake disc front and back.
Bottom line is, there’s beef everywhere on this bike. This bike simply exudes beefiness, even the belly pan. Alrighty then, middleweight musclebike it is. And we are definitely looking forward to riding it.