H-D Production Figures: Official Numbers vs. Serial Numbers?

[HarleyCreation]

Recently I've began investigating H-D production numbers from the late 1940s and up while doing KL, K, and XL research.

Now I've run head-on into the problem of the "official" production numbers listed in Harley-Davidson's "The Legend Begins" not matching levels of bikes produced from other records or by serial number analysis. Already in late Knucklehead times the (ahem) problem begins i.e. "The Legend Begins," p.204, gives 1947 production as 20,115; BUT, H-D production chart c1953 gives 1947 production as 20,392.

If the discrepancy is only a couple or few hundred bikes off, there's a logical and simple explanation one could offer. BUT, if the discrepancy is off by THOUSANDS then it becomes much harder to explain unless perhaps H-D was NOT following its own serial numbering system at times.

I bring this up because I've encountered a couple serial numbers that are THOUSANDS off the published production numbers for that particular model. Unless the serial numbers are spurious (not factory), there does seem to be problem as guys have mentioned before. It seems to begin in the late 1940s in a small way, but grows greatly by the 1960s.

Has anyone seriously addressed this puzzle or built a data-base of valid serial numbers and matched them against official production numbers?

Or am I imagining all this?

[bmh]

Ive noticed in reaserch for my 51 some of the same thing. Sometimes I think it's in the way things were tallied. For example were the FLS models part of, or in addition to the FL models? now compound that by having E, EL, ES, ELS, F, FL, FS, FLS, and some bad accounting can really get things in a tizzy. I've been told , but do not know if it is true or not that all factory records prior to the 60's were destroyed by either fire or flood, heard it both ways. If that is the case we may never know actual real production figures.
Brian

[Jerry Hatfield]

The following isn't news to "At the creation", and probably doesn't explain the problematic numbers he's noted. But here's food for thought. The whole issue of motorcycle production is complicated by several possibilites. I'll use off-the-cuff years to simplify. "1956-MODELS PRODUCED" refers to the bikes built ca July 1955 through ca May 1956, and sold on the dealers' floors as 1956-models. "1956-MODELS SOLD" refers to motorcycles sold from ca Sept. 1955 through ca Aug 1956. "1956 MOTORCYCLE PRODUCTION" refers to both 1956-models and 1957-models that were built in calendar-year 1956. It gets stickier. In the business management context, the fiscal (or business) year may apply to cited production figures. The company business year was generally (I think) Sept. through Aug. to coincide with the model-year. Still stickier: Harley-Davidson business reports referred to production "UNITS". For decades, a "UNIT" was either a motorcycle or a sidecar, so 5,000 bikes and 500 sidecars meant 5,500 units. Really sticky (though applying to small numbers): units "produced" would almost never equal units "sold" because there were typically a few "unsold" motorcycles retained at the factory for testing or to be placed in the museum. By the way, what is a "sold" motorcycle? To the factory, it's the motorcycles shipped to the dealers.