Born To Be Wild
Dave and Dan Hanlon hope to challenge long-dominant Harley-Davidson for a portion of the American-made motorcycle market. Can their company, Excelsior-Henderson, compete?
Anatomy of a Start-up
Excelsior-Henderson makes a bid to become the next Harley-Davidson
Dave Hanlon donned his sunglasses, rubbed his goatee, and adjusted his black-leather vest. Throwing his leg over a sleek red-and-white Super X prototype, the first new Excelsior motorcycle in more than six decades, he gunned the engine and smiled. With its low-slung seat, teardrop-shaped split fuel tank, and fork tubes passing through the front fender, the heavyweight cruiser embodied the styling of yore. Yet it had a thoroughly modern V-twin engine and a contemporary design. Hanlon and his bike looked good.
His brother Dan pulled up alongside him on an antique 1931 Excelsior Super X, a handsome emerald green bike with bright yellow spokes and classic American styling. Sporting three-day-old stubble, Dan was decked out in black boots, black jeans, and a jean shirt emblazoned with a large red X, the Excelsior-Henderson logo. He gave the thumbs-up to his older brother. The wild ones were off to the races.
Riding in tandem last August through the streets of Sturgis, S. Dak., the Hanlons quickly attracted lots of curious stares. And why not? They and their Excelsiors had crashed the biggest unofficial Harley-Davidson party in the country, the 1997 Sturgis Rally and Races, a gathering of 200,000 Harley faithful. But instead of being shunted aside, the Hanlons and their machines were heartily welcomed.
After a quick right and a left, the Hanlons were on Main Street in downtown Sturgis, the Hollywood Boulevard of the biking world. They circled slowly, like proud roosters strutting their stuff. A few bikers checked them out. They circled again, passing the tattoo parlors, the biker bars, and the leather-clad gawkers lining the streets. The cameras came out. A man in a black Harley jacket snapped photos of the biking brothers. Another Harley aficionado trained a video camera on them. One excited onlooker turned his camera away from a half-naked motorcycle mama and began shooting the Excelsiors. "Nice bikes," he said. By the time the pair had made a third loop, they owned Main Street.
"It's an adrenaline rush, riding these bikes around," said Dave, high-fiving his brother. "It was really cool to have the old and the new--the grandfather and the grandson--side by side. But the biggest rush is the fact that we're building one of these bikes."
I. Think with your heart
Sturgis, 1993. Dave and Dan Hanlon had come to the Black Hills for a week of mirth and motorcycling. Having made the long trek from Minnesota on their Harleys, they were ready to party. But the Hanlons felt restless. Dan had just sold EverGreen Solutions, the biodegradable-packaging-materials company he had founded, for $2.4 million in restricted stock. He was ready for something different; he just didn't know what. Like Dan, Dave wanted to shake up his life. For 17 years he had worked in the trucking business, becoming a general manager for Rollins Leasing Corp. Now he felt bored.
Hanging out with their biking brethren at Sturgis, the Hanlons noticed that nearly everyone owned a Harley or a Harley knockoff. There was nothing else. Harley had a monopoly on the American-heritage cruiser market. "We decided to offer another choice," Dave recalls.
The Harley-loving Hanlons knew a thing or two about motorcycling. They had grown up on a 160-acre dairy farm in Belle Plaine, a tiny farming community about 45 minutes southwest of Minneapolis. Dave and Dan, along with their three brothers and three sisters, sometimes worked 14-hour days, seven days a week, milking the cows and feeding the pigs and chickens. But life was good in Belle Plaine, especially when the brothers tooled around the farm on a primitive dirt bike, their first love.
Framed photos of the 11 motorcycles Dave Hanlon has purchased in his life, his "second family" as he calls them, line the walls of his office. Inspired by the movie Easy Rider, he bought his first bike at 18. He disassembled it, modified it, repainted it, and basically consecrated his life to it. "Girlfriends would complain that I was spending too much time working on my motorcycle and not enough time with them," recounts Dave, who still owns four Harleys. "Motorcycles are my release. I love to ride 'em, fix 'em, beautify 'em, and just have fun with them."
Dan Hanlon shares his brother's passion. He bought his first bike, a Honda, during his senior year of high school. When he speaks of motorcycling, he turns mystical. It's not a hobby; it's a way of life. "Biking is a kind of cleansing of the soul," he says. "I like the feeling of the wind in my face and the freedom of the open road. I like the smell of gasoline and oil."
Loving motorcycles is one thing. Knowing the motorcycle business, of course, is quite another. Yet on a hunch, the Hanlons decided to build a motorcycle-manufacturing company from scratch. They committed themselves to what was clearly an extremely arduous, capital-intensive endeavor. And they resolved to take on nothing less than Harley-Davidson Inc., which by 1993 was a $1.2-billion powerhouse and American icon. The brothers had no backers, contacts, or connections, and little cash. They appeared to be heading the wrong way on a one-way street.
II. The wide world of motorcycling
The golden years of American motorcycle manufacturing lasted from the turn of the century until the early 1930s. At various times manufacturers produced more than 200 brands of motorcycles. But eventually, the field consolidated into the big three: Harley-Davidson, Indian Motorcycle, and Excelsior Supply, which together accounted for 90% of the market. The Great Depression devastated the industry, wiping out most of the smaller manufacturers. In 1931, Excelsior Supply ceased operations. Indian survived until sputtering out in 1953. Several attempts to revive it in the 1990s went nowhere.
