Harley-Davidson 1870 Road Glide Special 120ème anniversaire FLTRXSANV 2023 — Specifications

One hundred and twenty years. Few motorcycle manufacturers can boast such a pedigree, and Milwaukee knows it all too well. To celebrate this anniversary, Harley-Davidson rolls out the heavy artillery with this Road Glide Special FLTRXSANV, a limited edition of 1,600 units that plays the prestige card without tipping into CVO excess. A gala bagger, of sorts, wearing its ceremonial livery with the confidence of a transatlantic ocean liner.

What immediately sets this Road Glide apart from its Street Glide cousin, also available in an anniversary edition, is that massive front end known as the "Shark Nose." The fairing is frame-mounted rather than fork-mounted, lending the whole machine an almost intimidating visual stability. You love it or you hate it, but you don't walk past it unmoved. The paintwork, however, wins everyone over. The lustrous Heirloom Red serves as a backdrop for a play of Midnight Crimson gradients accented by vivid red pinstriping. An Art Deco medallion adorns the tank, gold embroidery graces the seat, and gradient red inserts highlight the engine. The whole package is steeped in a Dark treatment where black swallows the exhaust, fork, handlebars, and nearly every mechanical component. Only the gold wheels, borrowed from the Road Glide ST, break up this brooding restraint. The effect is striking — intense without veering into flashy.

Beneath this ceremonial finery beats the Milwaukee-Eight 114, a 45-degree V-twin displacing 1,868 cc and producing 93 horsepower at 5,250 rpm. Modest figures on paper, but this engine plays its hand elsewhere. With 157.9 Nm of torque on tap from just 3,250 rpm, overtaking requires no effort whatsoever, accompanied by a deep rumble that pins you against the backrest of a seat perched only 695 mm off the ground. The six-speed gearbox delivers power through a belt drive — a quiet, low-maintenance solution. The 22.7-liter tank allows for reasonable legs between fuel stops, even if the 170 km/h top speed reminds you that this 387 kg fully-fueled vessel was never designed to chase down the German autobahn.

The onboard equipment goes some way toward justifying the €38,200 price tag. The 6.5-inch TFT screen of the Boom Box GTS system commands the cockpit, flanked by two speakers and Bluetooth connectivity. Each hard saddlebag swallows 32 liters of luggage. On the safety front, Harley spared no expense: ABS, traction control, linked braking, and drag-torque slip control all operate in cornering mode. A hill-start assist and tire pressure monitoring system round out the arsenal. The brakes, with their 300 mm discs clamped by four-piston calipers front and rear, prove equal to the task of hauling down all that mass. The 49 mm telescopic fork and twin rear shocks offer limited travel — 117 mm and 55 mm respectively — confirming that this machine's calling is the open road, not the racetrack.

Who is this 120th Anniversary Road Glide for? Collectors, first and foremost, who know that limited-edition Harleys appreciate over time. Long-distance tourers, too, who want to devour miles in supreme comfort without the price escalation of the Ultra Limited or CVO models. Against an Indian Chieftain Limited or a BMW R 18 Transcontinental, it wields an argument no one can match: one hundred and twenty years of American legend, distilled into 1,600 numbered machines. It's expensive, it's heavy, it's hardly nimble in the city. But on a highway unspooling its ribbon of asphalt toward the horizon, few motorcycles deliver this feeling of traveling aboard a rolling monument.