The '72 Sportster that was actually a '66

We used to get the occasional call out of the blue back in the ABATE days, just because we were in the phone book.  For those who don’t know, ABATE stands for A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments.  It was started in the late ‘70s by the editor of Easyriders magazine, and intended to be an organization for outlaw bikers and chopper riders, as we all wanted to at least pretend to be.  Later, political correctness crept in and the acronym was changed to American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, but us old guys know the real meaning of the word.  I was the Auburn Chapter Coordinator at the time and was the listed contact.

So the call I got one day was from a guy named Joe, or something like that - it was a long time ago- who had moved up from North Carolina that summer, and brought along his beloved Harley Sportster, which he had owned for the last eight years.  Much to his dismay, when he took it to the Washington State Patrol to change the plates over, they took it away from him!  They told him the bike had been stolen in Connecticut in 1966!  All these years it had been licensed as a 1972, and he wanted someone to help explain what happened.

So Grant and I went up to the old State Patrol office in Sea-Tac on Pacific Highway South by the freeway, which is the current site of the train station.  There we met Joe, and they let us in to look at his bike.  He had apparently rebuilt the engine at one point, and done lots of paint work and maintenance, and the bike was in good shape.  He showed us the title, and, sure enough, the VIN was clearly stamped into the engine case on the right side, the same number.

Grant was an old Sporty guy, and he moved to the other side, where he saw a second serial number stamped into the left side.  It turns out that, up until about 1970, Sportster serial numbers were on the left side of the crankcase at the base of the cylinders, just like the big twins.  After that, they moved the numbers to the right side of the case, and changed the format to the modern code still being used today.  Furthermore, the ’66 was a 900cc engine and the ’72 was 1000cc, so the case halves would not have mated up, thus proving that some thief had stamped the number in to match the title, and sold him the bike that way.  Joe was hosed, it seemed.

They told him the only thing he could do was contact the original owner and ask him to sign a release of interest, otherwise that guy could theoretically come and pick up his bike.  Later, we heard the rest of the story:

It seems the original buyer had ridden out of the local Harley dealer in Bridgeport or somewhere on this brand new Sportster back in 1966.  He rode around all day, then took it home to his apartment.  He didn’t have a garage available, so he parked the bike under his bedroom window and chained it to a post he had pounded into the ground there.  In the morning, it was gone.  He got to ride it exactly one day, and he had not bothered to insure it yet.  It vanished into thin air.

If motorcycles could talk, this one could have told us what life was like for it between 1966 and 1978, when our Joe bought it from a stranger in North Carolina with NC plates and the ’72 title.  This little mystery came to us in the mid ‘80s, and has remained a mystery to this day.

As it turned out, Joe got to keep his bike.  He had receipts for all the work he had done and was able to convince the original owner to accept $300 to release his interest, so he essentially bought his own bike back.  It took all summer to make that happen, but it did.  As far as I know, both Joe and the bike are still on the road somewhere.  As bike and rider go, they were mated for life.  You still run into that  from time to time, some old biker and his bike growing old together.  I remember one of them who actually got his bike buried in the ground along with his coffin, but that’s a different story for another time.  Keep the rubber side down, and the shiny side up.  Ride free.  :-{)}