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From: het3@panix.com (Harry MF Teasley)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Elvis' Lost Hog
Date: 15 Aug 1996 14:11:42 -0400

The Enthusiast, quarterly magazine of Harley-Davidson, just came yesterday and they printed my letter to them regarding the Elvis' Lost Harley UL. Here's the letter and the response:

Another interest of mine besides motorcycling is modern folklore, myths and stories known as "urban legends." These are the stories, odd incidents and fun "facts" we pass around in daily life, even though we seldom have any proof that any of them actually happened beyond the word of "a friend of a friend." Making the rounds right now is a story about "Elvis' Lost Harley." A typical version of the story goes:

A guy is riding through rural Vermont and runs acros a garage sale. He stops for a rest and talks to the old man holding the sale. The old man offers to show the guy an old Harley he has rusting in the garage, and offers to sell it for $200, just to get it out of the garage. The rider, knowing a good project bike when he sees one, jumps on the offer.

After he tows the bike home, he starts to work on it. He calls an H-D dealership to order some parts and the store asks for the VIN [1] of the bike, "because I can't order parts without a VIN." The next day, our hero gets a call from the owner of the dealership, who says, "I will give you $250,000 for that bike, right now, as is." Suspicious, the guy turns the offer down. The next day, the offer is increased to $400,000, which the guy accepts because he is no fool.

The dealer shows up and gives the guy a certified check for $400,000 as he promised. The guy asks what is so valuable about an old Panhead. The dealer takes the seat off and inscribed on the bottom is "To Priscilla, Love Elvis." This is Elvis' lost Harley, the missing "fourth" bike to the three at Graceland. The dealer then sells it to Graceland for five million dollars.

There are a number of features to this story that make it impossible to believe. For instance, that a guy would be working on the bike without having already removed the seat, that a VIN is required to order a part, that somehow the VINs of Elvis' bikes are on some sort of hot list for dealers, and that Graceland has all but one of Elvis' bikes.

My recollection is that there is at least one other bike of Elvis' at a dealership in Illinois, but I have no specifics. Do you know anything about this dealership, or did I remember wrong? Can you give me any information on how many Harleys Elvis might have owned? Have you ever heard the lost Harley story and, if so, how long ago did you hear it? Has anything even remotely like this ever happened with any celebrity's Hog?

Any information you can provide would be most welcome. I appreciate your time and effort.

Harry Teasley
San Diego, Calif.

We hear many variations of this urban legend. In fact, the Associated Press ran a story on the myth in October of 1995. The story, although interesting, is nothing more than a tall tale. What is true is that Elvis was a Harley-Davidson enthusiast; he may have owned dozens. Graceland has four Elvis Harleys (one on loan), and lacking the acquisition budget this story implies, calls the entire rumor "insane." Harley-Davidson owns the '56 KH Enthusiast cover bike, which is the only Harley-Davidson in existence with a signed title in the name of Elvis Presley. -- Editors

So, blowing off my last paragraph of questions, they provide a little more trivia to add to the body of knowledge. I found it sort of interesting that only one title bears Elvis' signature, and Harley has that particular bike, not Graceland. Another piece of trivia taht came floating through my mind was that I recall Malcolm Forbes giving a Sportster to Elizabeth Taylor about, oh, six or seven years ago. It was painted in the colors of one of her perfume lines (Passion or something; the bike was purple with gold accents). Malcolm was a cool guy; at the Hog museum in York, Pa, they have a chopper he had made: classic ape-hanger bars, flame tank, chrome everywhere. Apparently, it was his favorite bike (they had photos of him riding it, followed at a discreet distance by a phalanx of bodyguards and what-not on lesser bikes), but that could have been tour guide guff.

I know we've found other sources of information on this in the past couple of months, but I wrote this letter three months ago and figured I'd post the results anyway.

Harry "Why does Elizabeth Taylor get a Sporty for free and mine gets stolen?" Teasley

--
"You want vicious? Go play with PTT. No, not the Swiss postal service--- Page Teasley & Tepper." -SW