Click here for more photos

!-

Click here to read the Specifications

–>

Take this cool little 1953 K Sport that rolled into Barnett’s H-D a couple of years ago. This 45” side-valve Flattie had come from some Pennsylvania guy’s collection and looked ready to head to the nearest sock hop if they still existed. This predecessor to the later XL Sporty series of 1957 had all the right dance moves for its time with a weight I’d have to guess at right around 400 pounds and a bicycle-like feel between my legs. It must have seemed like a mini-bike to those 1953 riders used to The Motor Company’s Big Twins, but that was its intention as it was Harley’s first serious counterattack to the lightweight and sporty British twins and singles invading America after WWII. Actually this was a second year(and last) K model after the 1952 introduction of Harley’s most advanced bike yet with features like a unit construction four-cam engine and four-speed tranny, hydraulic-damped rear suspension, right-side foot shifting, and a hand operated clutch. Innovations like these must have polarized Harley-philes of the day like the introduction of the sacrilegious water-cooled V-Rod of today. Well maybe not quite that extreme, but it still probably caused a few heated arguments over whether your foot should be entrusted to shifting or the need for rear shocks to a real man.

The engine retained the iconoclastic 45-degrees of cylinder separation and made a lofty 30 horsepower on its then stratospheric 6.5:1 compression ratio contained by aluminum cylinder heads. Did the gas really suck that bad back then or was the then-current metallurgy and technology just not up to it? Anyway, the end result of those high-compression horses led to sub-17-second quarter-mile times and eventually you could supposedly do the ton with a long enough run. I don’t know if this actually happened much as the cast iron rear drum along with the steel front probably left a lot to be desired in a panic stop (which was probably any stop). Goodyear and Firestone were the tires of choice mounted on the 19” wheels front and rear and did their best to keep everything on the up and up despite their so-cute-you-want-to-pinch-it 3.25” width. Goodyear’s old advertising jingle of “where the rubber meets the road” takes on a new meaning with footprints this miniscule and you’ve just got to respect the riders who rode the living hell out of these bikes back in real time.

If you can’t see the direct DNA connection in the styling of every Sportster made in this 57-year-old Harley, you should not be operating a vehicle on public roads. It really is a pleasant experience to walk around and touch (perhaps fondle would be more appropriate) the predecessor of today’s Harley’s XL series. The 4.5 gallon tank and fenders wouldn’t look too out of place on an oh-ten. The six-volt Delco-Remy/H-D trumpet of a horn might look a bit out of place on a new version, but it looks totally at home here. The ’53 K also featured the first option of hard saddlebags made from the carbon-fiber of its day, Royalite plastic. Who’d a thunk that something so synonymous with dressers today, hard bags, would have been introduced as a factory option on the sportiest model Harley made at the time? Kinda like how Harley introduces its pumped-up engines on dressers first today instead of on its sporty bikes. Yup, everything I know is wrong.

One of the biggest chuckles I used to get when I was selling Harleys was when someone would proudly inform me that their bike was #367 or #591 out of a “limited edition” of 3,000 or whatever. Anybody who knows anything about collecting knows that only the first and last numbers are considered something special. Things are a little different with this example as it’s one of only 1,723 made during H-D’s 50th anniversary. Just having any number of one of these is cool and gives you bragging rights to a piece of history. Things were a little different then as its simple VIN of 53K1400 tells its own story without trying to be part of some marketing hack’s limited edition idea of an engraved numbered dash or tacked-on plaque. Back in 1953, if you somehow scraped together the not inconsiderable sum of $875, you too could have been a Wild One like the recently released movie version of the Hollister party on wheels, The Wild One. In the true American way, you had a wide choice of colors with Forest Green, Glacier Blue, Pepper Red, and, of course, Black as standard offerings with Glamour Green, Cavalier Brown, and White available at extra cost. Some things just never change in the H-D world and multiple color choices are one continuing tradition.

Now before all you classic collector purists whip out your quill pen and parchment paper to write me that such and such is not correct for a 100-point restoration, let me state that you’re possibly correct and you can pat yourself on the back for being so smart. I’m not presenting it as showroom minty-fresh and obviously I’m not as knowledgeable as you and even more importantly, I don’t care. Not one iota. This cute 1953 K Sport is a wicked cool bike that I like for what it is after 57 years and I’d love to be able to tool around on it without worrying that the flibberjabber or switch nozzle is incorrect for that year. If you’re interested in giving this bike a proper home instead of being shuffled around Barnett’s showroom looking forlorn as it’s surrounded by Factory-pimped, jacked-up-on-chrome CVO models, give Barnett’s a call at 800-736-8173 or email infobhd@barnettharley.com for more info.