Post Listing Update: This XR1000 did not meet reserve with 30 bids up to $12,600 on eBay in Pismo Beach, California.
The XR750 is one of Harley-Davidson’s most iconic motorcycles – though it was never intended to be street legal. But what if Harley took a XR motor and shoved it in a Sportster frame? Willie G himself had a similar thought, and the XR1000 was born. It would pair the new-for-82 XLX chassis with a motor that retained the Sportster bottom end but got fancy pieces up top. This, combined with Dell’Orto carbs, 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.
Most of the XR1000s I featured have barely any miles or usage, which also means they need some recommissioning before you can put some more miles on it. However, this one (VIN: 1HD1CDH24DY122956) has about 16,300 clicks on the odometer and the seller (who is the second owner) says that everything works. It’s received plenty of work in the last two months: oil/filter changed, transmission fluid flush, new spark plugs, NOS petcock, valve adjustment, and a carb rebuild. The bike sat for about two decades and the seller has put approximately 1,500 miles on it – he says he’s “worked out all the kinks.”
Find this XR for sale in Pismo Beach, California with bidding up to $9,000 and the reserve not yet met here on eBay.