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Mister Sturgis
Celebrating and
expanding an historic theme
6 September 2026, Gordon Forrester with
Guy 'Guido' Allen
Meet young Gordon
Forrester, a life-time motorcycle enthusiast who has
somehow strayed into becoming a specialist and
widely-recognised expert when it comes to
Harley-Davidson Sturgis series.
The latter are of
course long-standing tributes to the Sturgis
Motorcycle Rally, which began in 1938 in South
Dakota, USA. The Harleys began to appear in 1980.
Meanwhile the event
has over time become legendary, attracting riders
and pilgrims from across the globe.
Gordon latched on to this cultural
stream some 42 years ago and shares his story...
I bought my first
Sturgis back in 1984. Six months later, I had two of
them!
There I was, riding my 1977 Bonnie down to the Brass
Monkey Rally (in New Zealand) around 1983. A couple of
mates came down from Wellington, and one was riding an
'81 Sturgis. I didn't know what an '81 Sturgis was, so
he educated me on how rare they were. I loved the
style.
About nine months later, one came up for sale in
Christchurch owned by Wayne Turner, a speedway rider.
I ended up buying it. Eight months after that, I
picked up a real rough '82, and that's where it all
started.
I've got all sorts of
stuff: genuine Sturgis police hats from the rally,
belt buckles, sunglasses, medallions – stuff I've been
collecting over the years. Up on the wall is a judge's
armband from the Sturgis rally back in '89. And the
nearby number plate frame: God rides a Sturgis.
In 1980 Harley made about 1500 of the first Sturgis.
That's the FXB – a relatively rare one. 1981 is the
most common of them as they made about 3500. I have
one that’s done 125,000km.
Another in my shed came from Sydney. It sat on top of
a barrel in a guy's bar for the first five years of
its life and was never ridden. Then he sold it to an
old fellow who did about 5000km, and then a young guy
bought it. I bought it off him and I've had it for 20
years now.
Remember that 1982 was the end of the AMF era – June
16, 1981, was the buyback. Every bike that came out in
'82 has a commemorative badge on the front frame. They
did two colors: brown/black with gold wheels, and a
black version.
Originally, the new owners in the management team who
bought Harley back were only going to do the
brown/black color scheme, but AMF had already started
producing black components for that model year. So
there are only just over 1000 of the black '82s
around, making it the second-rarest Sturgis.
The absolute rarest is the 1982 Canadian model – they
only made 42 or 43 of them in Candy Red with gold
wheels and a gold maple leaf on the tank.
The Dyna series from 1991 was the last numbered
Sturgis model. They claimed it was "one of 1600" but
they only produced 1544.
One-Off Softail Sturgis Concept
There was talk at the
factory of doing a Softail and they weren't 100 per
cent sure if the Dyna frame was going to be ready to
go into production. This is for the 1991 model year.
The powers-that-be said, "We've got to build something
for the 50th anniversary of Sturgis. What do we
build?" They took a Low Rider Classic – the standard
Softail Custom – and built a one-only concept bike:
the Softail Custom Sturgis.
Now, what ended up happening was the engine and the
Dyna frame were ready to go. So, that Softail concept
they built went straight to the museum. A lot of
people don't even know it exists.
This Softail was never seen again; It just goes into
the museum, and that's it. I thought I knew a shitload
about Sturgis variants because I bought my first one
back in '84!
Then Colin Jones from Geelong H-D (Vic, Australia) was
having a show. He said to me, "Well, you know about
the Softail Sturgis?"
I said, "Bullshit. There's no such thing."
And he produces a photograph on his phone from a
dealer meeting at the Milwaukee museum. So I went
searching on the internet. There were three grainy
photographs on the entire web – that's all you could
find. You couldn't get any information at all.
It just happened to be that Kendal Maroni – Dave Rey's
old right-hand man who is at Antique Motorcycles now –
got made curator of the museum.
I actually started off by getting Kendal to ring the
museum to find out if we could get information on that
one-off Softail. In that conversation, Kendall turned
around and told them about the 75th tribute bike I
built.
So they said, "Righto. If Gordon sends us 10 detailed
photographs of his 75th tribute bike for our archives,
we'll send him 10 detailed photographs of our bike."
That's what they did. Then, two years later, the
museum got back in contact with me and said, "Have you
finished that Softail replica yet?"
I said, "Yeah."
There are a couple of little differences that I've
done with mine that I reckon I've improved on. My
donor bike didn't have the high-low exhaust, so I used
the standard Softail exhaust.
But they still went with the chrome dash on theirs.
Everything on the Sturgis is supposed to be blacked
out, so I actually put a blacked-out dash on mine. A
bit like the Fat Boy, I got a special ignition sticker
made up with an orange circle around it, plus a few
different bits and pieces. But it is, essentially,
that bike.
So, this machine and the 75th tribute bike were what
me and old mate Chris Beattie (founder of Heavy
Duty magazine) and I were going to ride to
Sturgis. Then COVID hit. We had everything booked –
accommodation, everything – and then it all went to
dust. Chris reckons the Yanks would have gone gaga
over it.
The 75th Anniversary Sturgis Tribute
It started out as a 2001
Super Glide Sport (FXDXT). I needed that specific
model because it was the only one from that era with
an all-black engine block.
Finding a tidy FXDXT was hard because guys thrashed
them as club bikes. I changed the front end, fitted a
custom fairing, replaced the tank and dash, and
hand-built 90 per cent of the wiring harness.
The graphics were custom-made from artwork off a
T-shirt. The tank decals are genuine '91 Sturgis
decals over a Screamin' Eagle base, and I made custom
red circular badges for the rear brake calipers and
ignition switch.
For every three hours of wrenching on a bike, there
are five hours of research before you even touch a
spanner. The time is all in the detail – making custom
wheel spacers, building custom dash panels, and wiring
up the instruments to look factory-stock.
Harley did a very poor effort for the 75th
Anniversary, when it built one as a giveaway bike at
Sturgis. A few people who saw the factory giveaway
bike and then saw my custom 75th Sturgis Tribute
reckoned mine was ten times better!
The XLCR Cafe Racer
Ed’s note: while Gordon is very much a Sturgis specialist, he has an exceptional XLCR café racer in the shed. It was one of a few early Willie G Davidson designs that have stood out over time.
More recently
it has been referenced by H-D when it showed various
versions of a latter-day version running the 1250cc
Revolution Max powerplant used in the Pan America
adventure tourer.
This is a 1977 version. They built them in '77 and
'78, and nine of them in 1979.
It's an XR frame—the same as the XR750. They also came
out with hot cams in them and were guaranteed 110
miles an hour from the factory. They were the most
powerful Harley of their time because you only had the
1200 big block or the other Sportsters.
This was bloody fast because it was a lot
lighter—fiberglass front guard, fiberglass fairing,
fiberglass seat frame, and rear guard. You could even
buy a pillion seat for them, which clips straight onto
the normal studs. You had to change the rear axle
because that's where the rear pegs attached.
I can tell you exactly how many were made: 1923 in
1977, 1201 in 1978, and nine in 1979.
Because it has a unit-construction engine, and this
was right in the middle of the chopper era, these
didn't sell – they sat on dealer floors. People pulled
the unit engines apart to put them into digger or
chopper frames. The rest of the bikes got cut up and
dumped.
It was one of their biggest disasters. I've got a
letter from HD showing they were being sold for 25 per
cent off the wholesale price.
This bike went to the Guggenheim show in Brisbane a
couple of years back.
I never had any
intention of buying an Ironhead Sportster. A lot of my
mates back home (New Zealand) in the early days got
off Triumphs and British bikes and went straight to
big twins. They had problems with Ironheads, so I
never gave them much credit until I bought this one. I
wasn't really looking for a project at the time; it
just popped up on Shannons. I set a budget, bid up to
my limit, and got the bloody thing.
For the time there were a lot of unique components: no
kickstart, no oil filter – there's a sight glass on
the oil tank instead, the reverse-direction gear
lever, tank badges, the tank itself, all the fairing,
the idiot lights, even right down to the mirror stalks
because they were kinked to fit around the fairing.
You pay US$250 each for a mirror now.
That's why there are about three rough ones in America
currently being wrecked instead of restored, which is
a shame. But what that does for the surviving ones is
push the price way up.
This was one of Willie G Davidson's early efforts
after the Super Glide boat tail.
The 1971 Sportster and the '71 Big Twin were the ones
everybody liked – they came standard in white or
black, but you could buy accessory bolt-on kits in
green, red, or blue. This XLCR was the next major
factory custom after that.
***
Where's Gordon?
Gordon always seems to have a Sturgis
project or two on the go, some of which he sells to
new owners. If you’re in the market for one, call (61)
0412 137 220. He is based in Victoria, Australia.
The XLCR is
also on the market via Bikesles.
Sturgis maths
You might notice that the starting date for Sturgis and the anniversary dates we mention seem to be out by two years. That is because the rally did not happen in 1942 and 1943 due to fuel rationing and other WWII restrictions. Those years are not counted.
***
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