A One of a Kind Servi-Car

Officer Friendly may be smiling because he’s having a great time giving out parking tickets, but he might just be excited to be riding on a new Harley-Davidson GA Servi-Car.  The Motor Company produced Servi-Cars from 1932 all the way until 1973, making it one of the longest running production lines for Harley-Davidson.  Unfortunately, when Servi-Cars were first manufactured, Harley-Davidson was still struggling through the Great Depression and the demand for new motorcycles of any type was extremely low.  This particular Servi-Car rolled out of the factory in 1933, which was the lowest production year for HD.  Of the four different Servi-Car models produced for ’33, the GA model production for the entire year was just 12 machines.

To add to the rarity, the ’33 Servi-Car was powered by a 45″ sidevalve motor which was only used from 1932 until 1936.  This was the same motor used in the RL model and was later replaced by the WL motor which was used until 1973.    One of the main differences between the two motors was the RL motor did not have recirculating oil.  Instead of being filtered and pumped back into the oil tank, on an RL the oil basically flowed through the engine, into the primary and finally onto the rear chain.  Many people mistakenly think this means that there was not an oil pump, which is not true.  There was a hand pump which adds to the confusion, but this was only used to manually fill the crankcase with oil after draining.  During normal riding conditions, the mechanical oil pump kept the engine lubricated just like in a modern motorcycle.

On top of being 1 of 12 and having a rare motor, the ’33 Servi-Car also has a one year only paint scheme.  The art deco style eagle was the first graphic to be used on an Harley-Davidson gas tank and was added in hopes that the flashy paint job would increase sales.

While your searching through old barns and scanning through Craigslist, keep an eye out of the ’33 GA Servi-Car, you just might hit the jackpot and find one of these 12 machines just waiting to be restored and put back into service.