Because of media obligations, sometimes it's quite difficult for me to keep my keyboard silent when I am aware of big news like the launch of a new Harley-Davidson model. Now that yesterday evening at the Ace Hotel in New-York City, Willie G. Davidson (with Harley-Davidson styling team members Casey Ketterhagen, Frank Savage, Ray Drea, Rich Christoph and Paul Martin) have unveiled and celebrated with the media the new Forty-Eight motorcycle, I can publish and tell you all what I know.

First, you have to know that I like very much this City Brawler in the legendary tradition of the hot rod Sportster line with the raw, elemental appeal already expressed in the Dark Custom™ bikes. The first thing you will notice is its bulldog appearance due in great part to the two 16 inch black steel laced wheels with a front dressed with a tall MT-90 130 mm front tire (requiring now a fat front end) and a 150 mm rear tire. The muscle stance is

exaggerated by a very slammed suspension (by factory standards), a solo seat 26 inch high and a small 2.1 gallon peanut tank. And for those who want to know why this model is called the Forty-Eight, a little bit of motorcycle history that Harley-Davidson didn't provide at the launch. It's in 1948 that Harley used for the 1st time the peanut gas tank, but not on a Sportster (1957). It was on a 125-S model, the peanut tank being a copy of a DKW built by the German Wehrmacht between 1939 & 1945. So, to be historically correct, this new model should have been called Thirty-Nine and not Forty-Eight! But it's another story...
The Forty-Eight runs a blacked-out rubber mounted Evolution 1200 cc V-twin engine and got the raw and elemental appeal already found in its brothers of the "Dark Custom"™ line. Evidently, Harley is pitching this bike to the twenty and thirty years old segment as an "about-town" motorcycle or "bar bike", trying to redirect its image to the core attitude of the brand and offering a price not breaking the bank (starting at $10,499 in Vivid Black). Harley considers the Forty-Eight a ready to ride radical custom, but as a matter of fact it is also primed to take on its owner's character and personality. Nothing more the factory wishes than Gear Heads turning the Forty-Eight iron canvas into rebellion spirited customs. We are ready...
Radical attitude and straight on style come from a series of distinctive elements. Black components including air cleaner cover, clutch and brake levers and turn signals, low custom handlebars with under bar mounted mirrors, side mount license plate, unusually clean chopped rear fender with combination stop/turn/tail lights, shorty dual exhaust to pound out the distinctive Harley sound, fork-mounted turn signals, slammed speedometer mounting bracket and fork brace with lightening holes, dual texture solo seat (passenger pillion, foot-pegs and backrest are available). The Forty-Eight is available in Vivid Black, Brilliant Silver and Mirage Orange Pearl colors. Soon at your Harley-Davidson dealer.
In conclusion, you will not be surprised to know that all marketing and advertising efforts of Harley-Davidson on going to focus on social medias, blogs, with products placement on counter-culture programs, Tv series like Sons Of Anarchy, etc.
Back in black. Back to a collective past where bikers were sharing the same values. Back to what made Harley a core bikers brand. It took a deep recession and hundreds of lost millions for Harley to understand again its market. Great...Harley-Davidson (pictures copyright Harley-Davidson)