I’m not going to elaborate too much, but I just have to share this and see if any Harley historians can tell me if this might be legit. I see from a short search that in fact the ‘Softail’ was not originally built by Harley Davidson and did originate from St. Louis?

I met a guy while touring Arkansas a few weeks ago who said he has the FIRST Softail. In so much as he owned this custom bike from this St. Louis – I believe – builder and Willie G spotted it and like maybe went for a ride on it or something… I’m not 100% on the details. This guy gave the info on the builder to Willie G and Harley bought the company which is how he arrives at owning the *First Softail*

Super nice guy by the way – I’m not depicting him in a negative light, but I am curious how his story might flesh out with the historians that I’m sure frequent this site.

 

History
Bill Davis, an avid Harley rider and engineer from St. Louis, Mo. designed the softail in the early 1970s.[citation needed] According to Greg Field on page 242 of the chapter "Father of the Softail" in the book The Harley Davidson Century, published by MBI Publishing (2002), Mr. Davis contacted Willie G. Davidson in 1976. Furthermore, in his book, "Harley Davidson Softail", Field says that Davis sold over his "sub shock wide glide prototype" to Harley Davidson in 1982. In 1984 Harley Davidson began to manufacture a revised version of the Davis softail design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softail

 

I see more detail here: http://www.ehow.com/about_5365474_history-harley-davidson-softail.html

This doesn’t rule out the possibility that the guy I talked to was the reason Willie G got back with the custom shop

 

I also read somewhere that Yamaha was involved in the design.
For sure they had a similar design (hidden shocks) in production a few years before Harley.

 

Yamaha came out with the first Softail style swingarm in 1977

 

For sure they had a similar design (hidden shocks) in production a few years before Harley.

 

No way! A Japanese company contributed to Harley design???

 

what hasn't Harley copied?

 

Needless to say, I was proud to learn this.

About a month after learning this story, I actually met a guy who was his friend and supposedly helped him created said "First Softail".
Seemed legit as he had pictures of him & Mr. Davis hanging out and stuff.
Was pretty cool.

 

1st off let me say, I had nothing to do with the original design of the Softail,
I just built a bike. I was cruising down St. Charles Rock RD, around St. Louis one day, in 1977, I saw the most unusual Harley Frame ( RoadWorX) . I stopped at the bike shop, it was called Osbornes. I asked the cat working the desk about the frame, and he said it wasn't for sale. I financially persuaded him to part with it, for like $650.00 and I came back with my Rambler station wagon, I actually lived in Northern Illinois.
I built the scooter from a 73 shovelhead motor , a ratchet top tranny, and jammer sudial wheels, my Dad and a Buddy of mine were machinests and we stoked out some good custom made parts, foot pegs ect.
I went to the State Police, and they said I needed a builders title for the frame, so I called down to Osbornes ( He was supposed to send me one, seemed like a real good guy) He had gotten himself killed somehow>
So I called Bill Davis and told him my plight, he said he would only send me one, If I promised not to show it that year! I am a man of my word so I didn't. You have to realize, there was no such thing anywhere, and I had to engineer all of my own parts. I will continue later.