The steering geometry gave the fork 31 degrees of rake, and almost 5 inches of trail. It needed reasonably sophisticated suspension, capable of a pretty good lean through the corners. This led to the FXRT, a sport-touring bike with frame-mounted two-thirds fairing and hard bags. This was dubbed the FXR, and the first Super Glide II version was advertised as separating the men from the boys. It should be noted that an engineer named Erik Buell had a major hand in this. Then, in the waning days of AMF, a more up-to-date frame appeared, the Tri-Mount, and the Shovelhead motor got rubber-mounted into a new double-cradle frame design, with the bad vibes disappearing. These were somewhat sportier-looking machines than the Electra Glide, and attracted new riders, though the vibration from that rigid-mounted engine remained. Davidson’s cruiser, the Super Glide, and it got the initials FX, followed by the Low Rider, Fat Bob, Wide Glide, etc. The Big Twin was always the star, and for a long time it was seen only in the lumbering FL models. The Shovelhead years of the late ’60s and ’70s, with aging product and discontented workers, had done considerable damage to the reputation of the marque. The company needed new product, and good product. In 1981, a dozen Harley execs bought the company back from American Machine and Foundry (AMF), an oddly variegated company that built both bowling alleys and nuclear power plants, and life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and York, Pennsylvania (the location of its big factory), changed drastically.
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