Rare 1942 Harley Davidson Military Police WLA Motorcycle

Jim Brown is a former history teacher. He fell in love with this 1942 Harley Davidson WLA military police motorcycle when he saw it on eBay. At the time of purchase, Brown had never ridden a motorcycle. This is his first and only motorbike.

Harley Davidson built two military motorcycle models in WW2, the XA and the WLA. The XA was a reverse engineered BMW. The WLA was more home-grown featuring a 45 cubic inch, 500cc vtwin motor. It has a three-speed, suicide shift (or mouse trap) transmission. Top speed was likely 65 mph.

Electrical system was built with a 6-volt and interestingly enough, the ignition was a multi-functional switch. It also has an original springer front end.

During the war, military vehicles had different headlights from civilian vehicles. The WLA was equipped with a black out lighting system which basically included a regular headlight with a hood over it to let through only a sliver of light. Black out lighting is also in the rear.

On the front left fender is an ammunition box. On the right, a Thompson sub machine gun and sling. The fuel tank was on the left and the oil tank on the right. There's an original tool box with key. The saddle bags are perfect replicas.

Thanks to the WLA's generous owner, I had a chance to sit on the bike and make somewhat of a fool out of myself holding a rifle - for what I think was my first time.

Get your motor running!

Starting the 1942 Harley WLA is apparently easy but there's a number of steps to it:

-Begin by turing on the fuel at the fuel tap; a few screws counter clockwise should do it

-Clutch needs to be engaged

-Transmission must be in neutral

-Then get in a few kicks to clean out the cylinder

-Set the choke on the carburator

-Next you have crank the left grip spoke advance

-Give the bike a quarter throttle

-Turn on the ignition 

If you're lucky it should fire right up. We've come a long way!