A Love Letter to the FXRT

In January 2022 Harley-Davidson launched the Low Rider ST and said in its own press release where the fairing came from (H-D press release).

“A key element of this model is the frame-mounted fairing, which has a shape inspired by the classic FXRT Sport Glide model fairing favored by West Coast customizers.”

That is the factory naming the FXRT, 30 years after it built the last one.

What the FXRT was

The FXRT came out for 1983 as the touring FXR. Same stiff welded frame, same engine hung on three rubber mounts and two stabilizer links, plus a frame-mounted fairing and hard bags. Those were designed for the Nova, Harley's shelved liquid-cooled V-four, and the side scoops were shaped in a wind tunnel to feed the Nova's radiator (Hot Bike). 1983 was the only Shovelhead year. The Evo came for 1984, belt drive for 1985, and the last ones were 1992 models (Rider).

The fairing rides on the frame, not the fork, so the front end steers light and the bike still handles like an FXR. A sport tourer before Harley used the word. That is why people still hunt for them.

The riders kept it alive

Harley quit building FXRTs. Riders didn't quit riding them. Out West they became the base for club style performance builds: more motor, better suspension, the fairing and bags left on. Harley's styling team watched it happen. In the factory's design video, Richards describes it (H-D video, 2:21):

“There's a fundamental shift that we saw happening a few years back. What folks were doing is they were leaning into performance and really was taking root in Southern California.”

“They were either restoring FXRTs or FXRs and putting that fairing on there.”

He says it showed up as two or three bikes in a sea of a hundred at the shows they follow, “and that's how we spot a trend.”

What Harley said

Same video, lead designer Dais Nagao:

“We have so much respect to FXR and FXRT. Willie G and design team came up with that iconic look.”

Then Paul Weiss on the fairing vents:

“You've got the side ducts straddling the headlight, which is a direct throwback to the 80s FXRT.”

Nagao is an FXR guy himself. Rider reported he was building his own FXR, single-sided swingarm and all, on his time off from the ST (Rider). The press release says the “genetic connection to the original FXRT remains familiar” and calls the new fairing “aerodynamically superior to the FXRT fairing.” The corporate release has Richards saying, “We took the iconic Motor Company design from the Eighties and gave it a new identity with a modern echo” (PR Newswire).

What the ST copied, and what it didn't

Copied: a fairing bolted to the frame, a round headlight between two vents, hard bags, a tall rear end and the rider sitting on top of the bike instead of down in it.

Not copied: the chassis. The ST is a Softail. Harley says the Milwaukee-Eight 117 is rigid-mounted in the frame and leans on dual counter-balancers for vibration, the job the FXR gave to rubber mounts. One shock hides under the seat where the FXR runs two on a swingarm that pivots off the transmission. Rake is 28 degrees against 32 on the 1983 FXRT (Cycle World). Harley claims 125 lb-ft for the 117. The 1985 owner's manual claims 82 for the Evo (owner's manual). The ST pulls harder and stops better. It is not an FXR, and Harley never said it was.

What it means

The 2020 Low Rider S launch talked about “coastal style” and the Low Rider models of the 1980s. It never said FXR (H-D, 2019). Two years later the ST release said FXRT four times. That is the change.

Harley brought the FXR back once already, as the 1999 CVO FXR2 and FXR3. The ST is different. It copies the look on a frame that has nothing to do with ours, and it says so in writing. Thirty years after the last FXRT, the factory admitted the idea was ours first. We'd still take the rubber-mount frame.