Out the window beyond these 2001 Harleys, a Heritage Springer and a Road King, you can see the Barber roadrace circuit.
Above, left and right: A 1980 Harley XR750 and a 1981 Indian Mini. Below left, top and bottom: A 1912 Indian Twin and a 1913 Harley-Davidson Model 9A. motorcyclist in full leathers playing a grand piano, and through the windows we see random three- dimensional, wonderfully incongruous sculptures like a wandering cow near the racetrack.
Motorcycles are grouped in lifelike, three- dimensional displays. Fittingly, rare and beautiful examples of vintage American bikes take center stage. We study a cluster of Harley and Indian wartime bikes in full dress and perfectly displayed with proper respect. There are beautiful vintage board- track racers set in a three- dimensional backdrop of a banked wood- plank track. In one of the more viscerally interactive displays, vintage drag bikes are staged at a Christmas- tree starting line with an incredible visual and stereo sound display that has us looking for burning rubber and sniffing for burned nitro.
On another floor, classic dirtbikes are staged on a flowing, stylized dirt track that spans thousands of feet of floor space. The bikes are posed roosting, jumping, and doing all the raucous things that vintage 2- and 4- stroke dirtbikes are meant to do. It is the largest continuous display of motorcycles in the museum, and each bike tells its own dirty story.
Many of the iconic Harley and Indian flat- track bikes are afforded places of honor in the museum, as is the full spectrum of fully faired American roadrace bikes. Clearly, racing is the overriding focus of much of Barber’ s vision.
42 | OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2025 | AMERICANRIDER. COM