Of Knuckleheads and Panheads

 

Harley-Davidson riders are deeply attached to their motorbikes, an affection based to some extent at least on some aspect or other of the design and engineering. For example, there are Knuckleheads and Panheads. The names derive from two designs of piston-heads of Harley motorbikes. A panhead Harley is so named because the rocker box cover on the cylinder head resembles a camper’s cooking pan, whereas, the cover bolts and the curved shape of the cover gave the knucklehead its nickname.* This miscellaneous piece of information, of no great importance (unless you happen to meet a Harley rider), is the kind of knowledge that accumulated in my memory over 40 years of conversations with hundreds of people as part of my work as a publisher. I’ve been reminded of this by a letter from Ken Magri, who I met when he was teaching art history at American River College in Sacramento, California.

 

Armando Magri's 1936 knucklehead: the two knuckles are immediately below the tank

I was working for Thames & Hudson as the publisher of college textbooks. My early commissions included books for courses such as Greek Art and Archaeology, Roman History, Introduction to Archaeology. The owner of the company said to me one day that he wanted “something much bigger”. I suggested that he give me six months to research a course called Art Appreciation, which is a humanities requirement for a degree in any subject in many colleges in the USA, especially in the South and the West. I realized that I had found something bigger during my first visit to talk to an art appreciation instructor at Perimeter College in Georgia. The college taught art appreciation to 2,000 or so students every year, so, since art textbooks sold for $100 or more, if I could publish a book that was adopted by her college, just that one sale would be worth $200,000.

 

An ad for a panhead engine

I travelled on and one day drove from Berkeley to Sacramento. I met Ken at his office in American River College. I soon learned that Ken had once taught art history at Folsom State prison (famous for being mentioned in a Johnny Cash song). I figured that, if he had taught art to prisoners in jail for some very serious crimes, he must have a talent for teaching his subject. On my second visit, Ken collected me from my hotel to take me to the Harley-Davidson dealership, which had once belonged to his father Armando. The owners still had on display Armando’s collection of antique Harleys. It was there I learned to tell a panhead from a knucklehead. Armando owned a first-year model 1936 Harley knucklehead, which Ken sold recently for $133,000. I also discovered that Armando, as well as being a motorbike dealer, was a competitor on a motorbike racing circuit in northern California. Ken took me home to see some of Armando’s memorabilia. These include wonderful black and white photos of racing meetings and biker’s rallies: I recall a very period group photo taken, at Pismo Beach in 1926. Another memorable item is Armando’s metal “skid shoe” worn over the rider’s ordinary shoe, used for broadsliding, or putting your foot down in a turn. Ken also showed me a splendid orange 1950 panhead FL Harley with a sidecar that he was restoring for his son Theo (who at that time was in high school, so too young to ride it). Theo has ridden in the sidecar but has yet to ride the bike. Ken tells me that he has been scanning the family collection of almost 1,000 photos collected by his parents Armando and Lu, and their predecessors in the Harley dealership Frank and Gladys Murray, for the Harley-Davidson Museum collection.

 

A 1926 biker's rally at Pismo Beach

Ken retired in 2016, as I did, and began a new career as a journalist. His wife Teresa drew his attention to an ad from the Sacramento News and Reviews for a cannabis writer. Ken’s task is to write pieces to add some real news to 28 (sic) pages of cannabis ads. In 2018 Ken won 4^th place for Investigative Reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for two articles about counterfeit vape cartridges. The paper recently received a grant to publish articles about affordable housing, so Ken has diversified from cannabis to social issues.

 

Photo of a 1919 Harley-Davidson's dealer meeting. I assume that the dealers are wearing face masks as a precaution against the Spanish flu

My boss at Thames & Hudson once complained that I had by far the largest travel budget of any editor. I wonder if he would have appreciated my travelling to be educated about the finer points of Harleys. My response would have been that the man who taught me about panheads and knuckleheads had helped me to publish the biggest selling book in the company’s history. A book that continues to sell in its 4^th edition.

 

Ken, by the way, is a Knucklehead.

 

* In our recent correspondence, Ken has been attempting, with limited success, to educate me in the finer points of Harley nomenclature and engine design. I have managed to understand that there are many more distinctions than simply panhead vs. knucklehead. Here is now Ken explained the question to me:

“For those who like to get technical, and there are many, the "evolution engine," which replaced the shovelhead, had its name shortened to "evo," but that referred to the whole engine configuration, not the cylinder heads. Some people have called evos "blockheads" but that nickname is not commonly used. As for the current overhead chain-driven twin cam engines, 1999-2016, I have heard them called "twinkies," but that's not a cylinder head" nickname. And folks who don't like the revolution engine, 2001-2017 called them the "showerheads" or "sprinklerheads." Funny nicknames, but again, not well known. Oh, let's see, I better mention that old Sportster engines from 1957 to 1984 were called "ironheads." But I own a 1977 Sportster and I didn't even know about that nickname until double-checking my information for you.

 

So, based on all of that, I wouldn't say it's just about knuckles and pans, except in the sense that many Harley owners are binary about Harley-Davidson. For example, some won't like any Harley made after...1948, or 1965, or 1984, 2001, or the Italian ones, or the non-V-twins, you get the point. 

 

So, other than all of those details above, when the nickname for the engine is based on cylinder head configurations, yes, "flatheads, knuckleheads, panheads and shovelheads" are the best-known nicknames.” 

Armando Magri on the flathead he rode at Daytona International Speedway in 1940