Author: staff@jalopnik.com (Erik Sherman)

Harley-Davidson has been constructing and selling motorcycles for over 120 years. But the primary bikes, and the way William Harley and Arthur Davidson built them, are far cry from how the Motor Company does things today. The 2 built a tiny wood shack in Milwaukee in 1903, no larger than a typical one-car garage. It was in that shack that William, Arthur, and Arthur’s brother, Walter Davidson, set to work constructing motorcycles. But they didn’t start by slapping a V-Twin right into a chassis. No, they began with single-cylinder bikes. In 1909, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company took a stab at its first…