Glenn’s 1915 Harley-Davidson Boardtrack Racer is pretty damn
awesome— and it’s just one of half dozen stunning vintage Harleys in his
collection—and he’s building a couple more…
I
GOT THIS 1915 11-K Model
Harley Boardtrack Racer as
a basketcase from a mate of
mine, Elton Brown, in Canada.
Obviously, being a basketcase,
I wasn’t exactly sure how the
finished bike would look so I
had a look at few examples on
the internet, and sure enough it
was a sweet looking bike, so I
grabbed it.
It’s virtually impossible
to get older bikes here in
Australia; those who have them
won’t part with them anyway;
and if they do, you’d be paying
a huge premium for them. It’s
one of those things—you sit and
wait.
Elton rebuilt the engine
and components in Canada. All
the fiddly stuff was done here
in Australia by me along with
some help from my mate Eric. I
do all my own tuning too.
With the money involved, it
needs to be done 100 percent
correct, right down to the clothcovered wires; the whole works.
It’s hard to get a lot of history
on a bike that’s a 100 years old.
The original owner would be
long gone; it probably spent
years pushed up in a corner of
a shed. But as with all my bikes,
the engine and case numbers
have to be correct. I’m pretty
pedantic about having the
correct numbers. If you’re going
to invest a lot of money in a
bike, it’s got to be right and the
numbers are a very important
part of that.
I wanted a 100-year-old