Cool Bike - 1960 Harley Servi-Car

"Bess", is a 1960 Harley Servi-Car which was purchased by the current owner about 3 years ago. Claudia said that she first saw the bike in an older copy of Walneck's Classic motorcycle magazine and decided she wanted it. She was able to contact the owner, who lived in Connecticut, but as luck would have it, he had changed his mind about selling the bike. Luckily Claudia was able to talk him in to parting with it, and now "Bess" has a new home.  

The history of this particular bike was that it's chopped remains were found in a field where it had been left to rust away. It was restored, and had a springer front end off of an older model Harley added. Now that Claudia has it, and can now be seen regularly ridden around Knoxville.

These are pretty neat bikes. Built as workhorses, Harley Servi-Cars were made from 1932-73, and were originally designed for the automotive service industry. (Get it ? Serve-A-Car ) The box on the back was designed to be large enough for a mechanic to carry his tools and parts. Also the first Servi-cars came with a tow bar so that they could be towed behind a car. The idea being that a mechanic could deliver a car to a customer, and ride the Servi-car back to his shop. For this reason the rear axle of the Servi-car has a 42" wide track so that the Servi-cars wheels would follow in the tracks of the car that was towing it.

Of course with the versatility they had, Servi-cars became popular with everyone from Police Departments to Food Vendors, and were in use for years. (You just have to wonder how big of a cooler would fit in the back!)