Thunderbike’s Knucklehead Project and Google’s Most Searched Brand is Harley Davidson which might surprise some and might not. AMERiders has the story.
It really isn’t surprising to us here at AMERiders that Harley-Davidson is Google’s most searched motorcycle brand. We don’t really need statistics to tell us that, with a company that big you can just feel it in your guts. However, getting confirmation sometimes is a nice thing.
Born in 1903 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Harley has grown into the most successful motorcycle brand ever. And by successful we don’t necessarily mean the one that sells the most, but the one most people and custom shops on this planet think/dream of.
As of 2017, Harley makes around 240,000 motorcycles each year – most remain stock, but a great deal of them go down the aftermarket part as well. Many other Harleys come to be from unofficial garages, who make custom rides and try to gain some attention by using Harley parts and slapping the name on the builds.
And the Internet loves them all. According to research conducted by Australian insurance company Budget Direct, Harley-Davidson is the most-searched motorcycle manufacturer in many parts of the world.
How much so? Well, our world is divided into roughly 195 countries, and Harley is at the top of the search engine’s list in 83 of them. And we mean the bigger ones, not some forgotten island-state.
You can check out the map available in the photo gallery for details. All the regions you see there in orange are ruled by Harley searches, from the U.S. to the Far East, and from Northern Europe to the southernmost point of Australia.
There are other names on the list as well. In some places, people like Ducati or Honda more, so they use Google to search for those. Others go for Kawasaki or Royal Enfield, and there are even some that enjoying googling Bajaj.
But just a quick glance at the map shows who the true king of the realm really is.
Thunderbike’s Knucklehead Project
Very few bike makers out there (and by extension car makers) are innovative enough to give birth to new families of engines that inspire generations. Harley-Davidson is one of those that are, as its powerplants were at times as famous as the bike models assembled in Milwaukee.
Say the word Knucklehead, and the mind immediately links that to Harley. And it has done so since 1936, when the engine came into the world.
Named so after the shape of valve covers, Knucklehead has come to stand for the type of motorcycles that were made in Milwaukee from 1936 to 1947, when the Panhead engine replace it. The name is still very much alive because bikes powered by this type of hardware are still a craze in the custom bike industry.
And you know that to be true when guys like Andreas Bergerforth, the main man of Thunderbike, a German custom shop specializing in Harleys, has one built for himself.
Put together close to a decade ago, the Knucklehead Project, as the garage calls this build, has all the traits of a bike of its age. Not only does it stay true to a wartime-era two-wheeler when it comes to shape and tech, but it also brings with it enough patina and beat-down stance to speak volumes about its lineage.
We’re told that for this bike to be brought back in shape, the original had to be dismantled “up to the last screw” and only then, after some love and care, put back together – there’s no mention on whether some of the hardware had to be replaced with new one.
Because this bike was built for in-house use, Thunderbike makes no mention of cost, but the Germans do say similar builds snatched back in 2012, when this one was put together, some 30,000 euros ($35,500 at today’s exchange rates), so that should give you an idea.
~And as always…
~Live Free Ride Hard~
~AMERiders
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