Old Harley Dealer Locating

[Chopperdave]

Does anyone have a list of Harley Dealers during the 40's and 50's?

I am looking for dealer names for dealers in the Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Pedro areas...

or any in so cal really

anybody able to help?

thanx
dave

[AdminGuy]

contact the guys in the SoCal AMCA chapter. Problem solved.

[Tom Lovejoy]

Dave, I know a couple Harley guys who grew up in the area in the 20s thru 40s, give me a day or two and I will have a couple names for ya, since you live in the area too - you might try George Gunther in long beach, thats one of the calls I was going to try, always fun to talk too, Tom.

[AdminGuy]

Thanks Tom----

[Tom Lovejoy]

Heres what I came up with, still some more to come. The guys I talked too were George Gunther, Bob Ross - both founding members of our chapter. Memories are not what they used to be and talking to Bob over the phone is really tough. Also George Hood, who is probably the best source - really sharp. Also I asked for San Pedro and long Beach area's, George knew several others in the L.A. area from the old days. I will try to get some more.
Hope I got it right - Long Beach area HD dealler, around the 40s. J S Carns, not sure of my spelling. He was known as Slim, when he went out of business. One of his wrenches, a Art Johnson and Lance Tidwell - another one of our founding fathers started another bike shop in the 50s or so, not an official HD dealler though.
Eddie Ryan HD dealler for San Pedro on 4th st, was there from 1929 - 1963. For several years his shop lead all west coast Harley deallers in sales. It seems, the Navy Base supplied alot of enthusiastic new motorcyclist. He was a very good rider, who had done racing and hill climbing. Before he came to Harley, he was a real Excelsior man. Had a dealler, again very succesful and he won the San Clemente Hill climb on an Excelsoir in about 28 or 29. He came to Cal in 28 or abouts from Colorado Springs.
Bob Ross Bought him out in 1964 to run an antique bike shop. Alot of the old shops bought out other old deallers and or took old machines in trade - and kept them. Thanks to things like that, Bob had quite a collection of old machines in his shop about the time he retired. Including Thors, Excelsiors and a hole bunch of old Harleys and even an Indian or two. One time I was lucky enough to get to go over there for a vissit. When I climbed under some of the shelves, which were covrered with all kinds of stuff. There in the darkness, were two Thors and an Excelsior - Awesome!!!!!! Thats what I got so far, always fun talking to those guys, on our club web sight we have picture of several of them - take care Tom.

[stan]

Harley Delers in so Calif

In San Diego there was Andres Harley Davidson on 929 India st. It was owned by Leonard Andres. He had a son I believe his nane was Brad Andres He raced harleys, in the 60's, and was a good rider. One thing I rember about his shop, was second level storage area, for military mostly. There was steep wood ramp the bikes were ridden up to the storage area. I am sure it was there in 40,s and 50,s because I would take the grey hound bus from my town to san diego in the late 50's to Guy Urharts(spelling?) custman scooter , and Indian dealer to buy parts for my 48 cushman scooter. I would go the few blocks to the HD dealer to check out the new harleys. As the story goes when Guy Urharts Indian dealer closed, Sammy Pierce bought all the Indian parts, I hear there were a lot of them like truck loads. I know that is more info than you wanted, but that's my story, and I am sticking to it. Stan

[Chopperdave]

thanx so much for the info!

i am lookin mainly for old HD dealer decals, or even good scans of them and knowing the names of the dealers makes it way easier!!!

thanx!!!