Harley Davidson VR1000

This is definitely not your average Harley-Davidson, or even one that shares any parts with the usual Milwaukee iron. The VR1000 is a V-twin, it's made in America, but there the resemblance ends. This half orange, half black apparition is built solely for the racetrack: Any resemblance with any other form of Harley-Davidson motorcycles begins and ends with the name on the fairing.

Made in America was the theme for the Harley factory's first built-from-scratch roadracer, the VR1000. Harley's road-racing department put the bike together using a list of American parts suppliers, some with no motorcycle experience, using no existing Harley motorcycle parts.

 The streetable VR1000 you see here (and the race version) are both owned by Mike Canepa, manager of the San Jose Harley-Davidson race team. Over the latter part of the 1995 season, Mike has spent hours in his shop, and in the shops of many other Northern California metalwork magicians, fettling the VR to its peak performance. Their work all seemed worthwhile when rider Michael Barnes qualified faster than the factory riders, Doug Chandler and Chris Carr, at the Phoenix AMA national at season's end. Canepa owns the street VR as a rolling parts cache for the race bike, but offered Motorcycle Online a chance to ride the rare machine. We jumped at it.