OK, I gotta come clean even at the risk of looking like a dumbass. In reading another thread that is now going on titled "Here is another one of my WTF do I have here" thread, nearly all replies have the "letter" thing going on, FX this, FL that and on and on and on. To this day, 40 + years of riding, I have no idea what all of those stand for!!! It's a Deluxe, a Fatboy, a Standard, Ultra, Lo, Springer, a Heritage, a Sportster and so on.

I don't know why, I have owned and or ridden all of them but that just never clicked for me and to be honest, I still have no interest in any of those or even learning them either. So...we can talk bikes, parts, repairs, custom, accessories, kits and just general bull$hit biker stuff just tell me what we are talking about! I'm also done going back and forth to Google to see what a person is talking about. Do those "letter's" actually mean or stand for something? Hmmm, So, if your feeling generous in future conversations and can type out a few more "letter's" to let me know the street name of the bike we are discussing, I for one would be very appreciative of it!

Motorcycles and riding today has come so far since I was a kid and starting out riding it's almost unreal. Here is an idea of how far back: I never heard the word computer or new of anyone who had one other than our Government and cell phones didn't even exist yet.

 

I always wondered too until I found this:

http://www.factoryfat.com/hdbikemodels.html

They have a pretty good explanation of the letter designations

 

I use the letter designation for my bikes here because it is much easier to type FXST than to type out Softail Standard Same thing goes for my Heritage classic. Especially when I'm typing on the IPhone.

 

As far as FL and FX, they refer to the type of front end a softail has. The FL front end is found on Heritages, Deluxe, Fat Boys, and Slims, A FL front end has the tins covering the triple tree area. The FX front end is found on the Standards, Night Trains, Deuce, Customs, etc, the triple tree area is open. This is the way Harley refers to the two types of front ends. On most models of Softails the first two letters indicate what type of front end it has. For example your bike is a FLSTN, FL for the fork set up, ST for Softail, N for Deluxe model. This is the industry standard for referencing what type of front end a Softail model has. Hope this helps.

 

Tony, I looked up yours and it appears to be a fkncrzy. HTH!

 

That's cool, thanks for posting it........................ good info.

 

I have read the description of the letter designations several times. They still mae no sense to me. I have an Ultra Limited, and a Heritage. that seems the easiest and most descriptive way to explain them.

 

I'm with ya Tony, I can never figure out what the hell a flhtcqx model is. I find it a lot easier to just type heritage or sporty rather than busting out the phonetic alphabet to describe what model bike I'm talking about. Some make sense, fxdwg for a wide glide I can see how they came up with at least. How the hell they came up with a N for the deluxe is beyond me.

 

There was an article written in American Iron within the last six months explaining the HD lettering system. It was very detailed and explained the logic behind it very well.

 

Yzergod, that is one beautiful pink deluxe! You're a lucky man.
Sorry to be off topic but it's so eye catching! Continue on boys