How Common Were Motorcycles in the Teens Through 50s

[Skirted]

Reading some recent posts made me wonder; just how common were motorcycles in the first half of the 20th century. For example in the typical small town America, would several motorcycles be seen during a normal day or would seeing 1 or none be normal?

I ask because in all those old movies as well as modern movies set in 20s - 50s time periods there are always plenty of cool old cars in "background" shots but never old motorcycles. I'm sure there have been some but it seems pretty rare.

[Tom Lovejoy]

From what I have read, they were very popular in the teen's. When by far most folks could by no means afford a car, motorcycles were the way to go. With a sidecar you could even haul the family :-) When the cars became mass produced and prices went way down, then the motorcycles became more of a sport minded mans kind of toy. At their cheapest a model T Ford cost about what a big American V twin cost. That's a hard sale for a guy with a wife and family. Interested to hear what others say about the later periods. But I think the motorcycle never recovered from what the teens were for the two wheelers. My Dad grew up on a farm in the 20's - 30's, he always said - motorcycles were few and far between in his area.

[Steve Slocombe]

Dear Jason, from research I did for my VL Book, it looks like a Model T Ford became cheaper than a Harley Big Twin and sidecar around 1916, and cheaper than a Harley solo around 1923. By the late 1920s Harley was emphasising sales to Police departments, and pushing leisure use of motorcycles through clubs and Gypsy Tours etc. For calendar year 1932/model year 1933, probably the worst year of the Depression, Harley again emphasises low operating cost in ads, but with the 1933 Roosevelt New Deal and the newly styled 1934 Harleys, the bike is advertised more as a lifestyle accessory. Like you, I'd expect to see more bikes in modern films set in say the 1930s. I just watched 1950 Sunset Boulevard and it shows a pair of Indian Chief Police bikes in Los Angeles near the beginning. Quite a few 1930s movies show VLs, although nearly always as Police bikes.

[Steve Slocombe]

Dear Jason, OK you sent me to Wikipedia and the Harley book The Legend Begins. I looked at US car production and it totals 28 million over the twelve years 1929-1940, which are the ones that interest me. Like bikes, 1929 was a great year, with 4m cars produced just before the Wall Street Crash. Calendar year 1932 was worst, with 0.93m cars being 77% down on 1929, then recovered, with good years in 1936/7 then soft in '38 before recovering again. For bikes, Excelsior quit in 1931 and Harley was outselling Indian about 2 to 1. There were no significant imports until the late 1930s. Total Harley sales over this period were 131,882, implying say 220,000 total bikes sales, or 0.78% of the car sales, or you need to see 128 cars per bike in period movies. Shame. I hadn't realised bike sales were so low relative to cars.

[bobbyt]

Motorcycle registrations in the U. S. peaked in 1918 at about 250,000. They declined sharply in the early
twenties, and continued to decline until starting to increase, though only slightly, starting around 1936.
There does not seem to be a marked decrease in registrations during the depression years; just a
continuing decline at about the same rate. A big increase came, of course, late in WW2 and through
the late 40s.

The effect of a declining market during the twenties shouldn't be underestimated and can be
seen in many of the actions the manufacturers took in those years.

BTW . . . automobile registrations were about 20 times motorcycle registrations in 1918. By 1930
auto registrations were about 200 time motorcycle registrations.

Bob Turek
#769