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Harley city
              australia

An Individual Dream

Harley City Motorcycle Collection book launch

(Guy 'Guido' Allen, 10 July, 2025)

Fast and historic motorcycles are the proverbial meat and potatoes of many collections, but this gathering is very different

harley city
              collection

The Harley City Collection launched a two-part profile in book form last weekend, from its spectacular facility on the outskirts of Castlemaine, Victoria (Australia).

Owner David Reidie is well-known in the local motorcycle trade, having run a consistently good business (Harley City on Sydney Road in Brunswick, Melbourne) from 1981 through to when he sold it in 2017. Along the way he indulged in some important cultural efforts, such as building and often sharing a fascinating collection while being the driving force behind big events such as the Great Race – a road rally challenge between lovers of classic (1958 and earlier) Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles.

That said, his collection is broader than Harley, with Indian, Vincent and Crocker also represented. His selection of the latter is probably of international significance.

What makes Reidie's gathering interesting and special is he often sets his focus on racing and modified machinery that may have been high-profile at the time and in some cases has since faded away. Much of it is down to personal rather than crowd-pleasing taste, for which he makes no apology. Nor should he.

Then again, there is H-D machinery on display for which many international collectors would swap a fortune or an organ.

It's by no means a static effort. Pretty much everything runs and, perhaps more importantly, there is a quiet line of new projects underway in a workshop that would easily double as a surgery.

Ask him about any bike in the line-up, some of which most of us have never clapped eyes on before, and he can talk you through the often wonderful story behind it and where it sits in context with its stablemates and motorcycling in general.

Along the way he honours ambitious modifiers, tuners and racers from many decades ago and some of whom might otherwise be forgotten except among dyed-in-the-wool specialist enthusiasts who mostly exist on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, in the USA. It's a fascinating historic community of fast souls.

harley city
              books


In a nutshell, that's what the two-volume Harley City Collection book set is about. It's not about Reidie or the museum, but unwraps the often quirky history of an intriguing mix of of motorcycles broadly categorised into modifiers and racers. The latter are in fact pure racers, while the former probably saw plenty of unofficial race action the street.

harley
              city book

The production values are high, while the stories are fascinating. We bought a set a little before the launch, during a brief visit to the compact and spectacular museum. It costs Au$190.

Regardless of whether you buy the book, we can recommend a wander through the collection, which also has a few gems to reward the car enthusiast.

See the Harley City Collection website

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