Originally Published In The August 2012 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine
A few months back, good friend and Antique Motorcycle Club of America board member, Steve Slocombe from the UK, contacted me about an interesting project he’d been developing in his head for quite some time. Steve is the owner and operator of VL Heaven, a company that specializes in 1930-36 Harley- Davidson V-series motorcycles, and over the past 20 years, he’s spent his life collecting and producing parts to keep these bikes on the road. When it comes to VLs, Steve is the guy to contact, and probably knows more about this era of Harley’s history than Harley-Davidson itself. About a year ago, Steve got the wild idea to recreate a newsreel segment that was filmed by the California Highway Patrol in 1935. The newsreel featured several members of the A CHP, aboard their brand new Police pursuit motorcycles — all 1936 Harley- Davidson VLH 80 cubic inch Flatheads — demonstrating the superior qualities of HD’s new top of the line machine. 1936 was the first and only year that the VLH was offered, making it a very rare bike, so when I heard that Steve was building a total of five of them for the project, I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. Well, after a few emails back and forth, there was no question — by mid-March, two had already been completed and three more were well on their way to being finished by the first of May.
Now Steve is a bit of a perfectionist. He likes his machines to not only run and operate well, but also look the part too. Before each of the machines were shipped to Wheels Through Time, they were rigorously judged for accuracy at various AMCA meets, each receiving 90+ points on their scoring card. So where do we at Wheels Through Time come in? When it comes to old motorcycles, or motorcycles period for that matter, what matters most is that they run like they were designed to run. Here at the museum, we pride ourselves on the fact that over 98% of the museum collection is kept in running and operating condition, so when Steve made the decision that each of his VLH Police bikes had to run topnotch, he knew right where to take ‘em. “Don’t be light on ‘em,” he said. “I want you and Dale to really put some miles on these bikes… after all, they each need to run 100 mph for the video.” This is where I raised an eyebrow. A 100 mph? Who takes their lifetime collection of parts, builds it into near perfect restorations, has them judged for accuracy, and then sends them down to us to ride the wheels off ‘em? That’s right, Steve Slocombe from VL Heaven does!
By the first of June, all five bikes had arrived at Wheels Through Time. While very nicely restored, each machine was only run for a few miles, and all needed to be dialed in and tuned for performance. Over the course of two or three weeks, Dale and I had the chance to make several necessary changes and adjustments, and managed to put a total of a hundred or so miles on the five bikes. When it came time to shoot the video, Steve arrived with three other tank-shift riders from New Jersey ready to put on the miles. They spent a good portion of the first few days continuing to dial the bikes in, giving each the proper amount of breakin before their 100 mph test. Each machine had a few minor issues over the break-in period, but nothing six good mechanically oriented old bike guys couldn’t fix. Now VLHs are pretty fast, make that very fast. But redlining a 76 year old machine within only a few revolutions of exploding is risky. Equally punishing five bikes is even riskier. But after a thorough warm-up, a few carburetor adjustments, and the twist of the wrist, each of the five machines mustered up the strength to push past that milestone 100 mile-per-hour mark that Harley had prided so much. We’re currently working on finishing up the recreation of the 1935 newsreel, so keep an eye out at WheelsThroughTime.com for the new video. As for the bikes, all five are currently on display at Wheels Through Time Museum in our “MotorCops: Police and Motorcycles” exhibit, and will be for the remainder of the summer.
