HHC: Restore: Chapter 24: 1955 Literature: 1955 HD Photo

1955 Hummer
Photograph taken October 11, 1954
This picture was supplied by the Harley-Davidson Motor Company
for the Harley Hummer Club's 5th Anniversary issue (January 1986).
Ella & Jerry Hatfield, #883 researched the date the picture was taken

The bike in this photo has a the wrong gas tank decal - it's a '55 Model 165 decal! Why?

This photo was taken almost 6 months before Hummers started hitting the streets, and probably a few months before production started. Perhaps they had not produced the Hummer decals at this point. Or maybe they hadn't even decided on the Hummer name yet! We've never quite gotten the full story from Dean Hummer about how the bike was named for him.

There is a very similar picture on the cover of the February 1955 News Bulletin and again on the cover of the March 1955 Enthusiast.

They did quite a remarkable job of re-taking the photo.

Look very closely at this and the Enthusiast photo. Besides the decal, the bike is at a very slightly different angle. The girl and boy are erect in the photo above, but in the Enthusiast photo, the girl is leaning slightly backwards, and the boy has his head and shoulders slightly hunched forward.