06/23/2026
No Frills Big Twin
The Super Glide FXR For 1986
From the December 1985 Hot Bike Magazine
Once upon a time there appeared on the scene a concept coined “No Frills,” about as important a contribution to the world of human endeavor as the wheel and bungee cords. It may have started with some airline that sold super cheap tickets with the provision that passengers brought their own paper bag dinner.
The “No Frills’ phenomenon has proliferated to every facet of our economy today, what with generic spaghetti and generic beer lining the supermarket shelves in drab blue and white labels:
Let’s face it, a lot of what goes on today is based on packaging. You could sell an ordinary rock to millions of people if you wrapped it up nice and cute. Bottom line...Harley-Davidson does not sell inexpensive motor-cycles. That’s a fact of life anyway you look at it. For the price of their no frills Super Glide FXR ($7,349.00) you could buy at least two “replica Harleys” which are offered by all the Japanese manufacturers. And probably have money left over for a no frills flight to Tokyo to boot.
Now all this depends upon your point of view. Some guys don’t mind women wearing artificial plastic fingernails as long as they look good. Some people don’t mind plastic fillers in their burgers as long as they taste good. And some people don’t mind their plastic motorcycles as long as they look Harley.
A lot of life is based on illusion and delusion. One man’s Jamahawaki is another man’s Harley. No man’s illusion is any more or less valid than another’s. It’s all in the choice. But what is it that compels the “other” bike builders to work so hard at designing and marketing so many
“customs” and “LTDs” that bear so striking a resemblance to the classic configuration of the American Harley?
Well, let’s say it out loud, why do they out-and-out try to fool people into thinking they’re buying a Harley. Well, money. They came up with the idea a long time back that they could sell a Harley lookalike for a lot less.
