2000 Harley-Davidson FXR4

Story by Mark Barnett, Photos by Frank Rangel

Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn’t a custom bike, it is pretty much a box stock special edition from the Motor Company. But in my opinion, this is one of the best factory customs Harley ever produced. The FXR line had been replaced by the new Dyna series several years earlier but there was some serious grumbling out in Harley land. The FXR models hadn’t sold that well and on top of that were pretty hard to manufacture. But once they were gone, those who did like them raised a stink. So Harley-Davidson made a curtain call, producing three models of customized FXR’s from 1999 to 2000. They were called the FXR2, FXR3, and FXR4, all coming with slightly different paint jobs. The bike shown here is my personal favorite, the bright, look-at-me yellow fitting the over-the-top chrome job perfectly. I liked how these bikes looked, how they handled, the dual discs and braided lines, the silver calipers, and yes, believe it or not, I’m even a little nostalgic over the Evo engine. I keep this bike right on the corner of a main aisle in our Barnett Harley-Davidson showroom so that I’ll pass by and see it daily. But, like so many other bikes that catch my eye, my liking something seems to be the kiss of death on the sales floor, this one has been in inventory a long time. Go figure.