What my bike looks like
This is a short history of how I ended up with a 2000 Excelsior Henderson SuperX motorcycle. My story starts back in 1998. The broader story begins even further back, at the turn of the century. In 1998, I heard about a startup motorcycle company in Belle Plain, Minnesota that was bringing back the Excelsior Henderson motorcycle. Excelsior Henderson was one of the original "big 3" along with Harley Davidson and Indian.
The Deadwood Special
I was interested in the brand. Excelsior Henderson held numerous speed records. It was the Cadillac of motorcycles of its time. The brand was purchased by Schwinn, who stopped making the bikes during the Great Depression. Schwinn had a great demand for their traditional bicycles, but motorcycles were not such a hot commodity at the time. Fast Forward to the end of that century, Dan and Dave Hanlon along with their sister Jennie, hatched an idea to bring the brand back. It may have seemed like a half-baked idea, but they want to engineer this bike from the ground up as much as possible. I was excited about the prospect of a new bike entering the market. When Excelsior Henderson went public, I scratched together $1,000 dollars and invested in the company.
The Jennie
The company was not a custom bike shop like Orange County Choppers. These were OEM bikes manufactured at a state-of-the-art plant in Minnesota. They are beautiful bikes. A combination of factors, detailed in Hanlon's book Riding the American Dream, led to a downward spiral. Stock shorting and production slow downs landed the company in bankruptcy. With the promise of keeping the company together, an outsider bailed Excelsior Henderson out and immediately reneged on promises. The company was parted out and dissolved. Ending the short chapter of an amazing story. What did that mean to me? I lost my thousand dollar investment. It was my first time investing directly in the stock market and it was a hard lesson.
Henderson Blue (my favorite color)
What sounds like a sad story gets better. When news spread that the company was going into bankruptcy, one of the dealers decided to offload his stock. He posted on a message board I was on that he would see all of his bikes for $10,000 per bike. These bikes retailed for twice that. I messaged him back, and reserved my bike. He wanted them gone the same week. I posted my Harley Davidson for sale and sold it the next day. I packed up my truck, headed south and bought my bike. Seventeen years later, I'm still riding her. She is special. Almost one-of-a-kind. Only 2000 were ever produced. In the end, I think I would call that a "happy ending." But wait, there is more to the story...
Into the Badlands SuperX
I was watching a new television program last year. Into the Badlands. The protagonist is a character named Sonny, who rides a steampunk motorcycle. Man that bike looked familiar! I went online to find photos of the bike to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, the bike is an Excelsior Henderson SuperX, chopped up and redesigned to fit the show. On one hand, I'm kind of pissed they chopped a couple of these classic bikes up for the television show. But it was also exciting to see such a rare bike on television. I wonder if that is what led to talk of reviving the brand?
It sounds like Aaron, Bell International (An investment firm) has been retained to reintroduce the brand into the US Market. The rumor is that they would incorporate much of the 1999 design into the bike. The 1999 design incorporated many design elements of the 1930s model, so the pedigree would be maintained. I like the idea. I probably won't invest. But it would be great to see the bike make a come back. It is a beautiful 1386cc X-Twin motorcycle. The jugs are at 50 degrees instead of 45 and offset by an inch to allow more stroke. The angle supposedly creates less stress on the pistons. It is air cooled (I added an oil cooler) and fuel injected. Good luck ABI. I hope you can pull it off.
