Post Listing Update: This XR did not meet reserve despite 33 bids up to $17,900 on eBay.
I’ve featured a couple of low mile XR1000s over the years, but nothing comes close to this 15-mile bike. This is the nicest example I’ve seen for sale. Ignoring the pristine condition, I like the theory of the XR1000, which was to have the essence of the legendary XR750 in a street legal motorcycle. Indian executives are nodding along as they consider the upcoming FTR1200. The XR1000 paired the new-for-82 XLX chassis with a motor that retained the Sportster bottom end but got fancy pieces up top. Combined with Dell’Orto carbs, this yielded a 20 horsepower bump from the stock Sportster, good for 67 ponies.
If you wanted more, you could even order a race kit from Harley with upgrades to the exhaust, cams, and compression ratio that was supposedly good for a total of 95 horsepower. Ignoring the race kit, the XR1000 cost just under $7,000 (a base XLX was $4,000). The steep price did not encourage massive sales, and less than 1,800 examples were sold in ’83 and ’84. For reasons I’ll never understand, the ’83 bikes were only available in grey. A year later Harley decided to also offer orange and black. For more on the old XR1000, check out this excellent article from Motorcycle Classics, where Clement Salvadori tries to determine if it was a Sportster for the track or an XR750 for the street.
There’s not much to say about this example, which has clearly spent its entire life in storage without much use. The seller includes a walk around video so you can admire how well this motorcycle has been preserved:
I’ve featured a few bikes from Bator International and their reserves can be quite high, so keep that in mind when you bid on this beauty. Also, you should note that the asking price on their website is $24,950. Bidding is currently at $13,600 with the reserve not yet met