12 Harley-Davidson Models You Didn’t Realize Existed

Although we chose the 1980 Harley-Davidson Sportster, the truth is that just about any model year from the Sportster line in the ’80s was a dud. The 1980 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1000, in particular, was rife with problems, landing it on our list of the six most unreliable Harleys ever. Nonetheless, its main problems are shared among all the Sportster models in its decade, especially issues surrounding its engine. Thus, we picked the 1980 model, since it kicked off a trend of failures that would last 10 years.
Advertisement
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the 1981 Sportster is also often cited as one of the worst Harley models since it hosts many of the same core problems as its predecessor. For starters, its V-twin engines were underwhelming. Both the 1980 and 1981 models had a volume of 997cc yet only managed to produce 55 horsepower. Worse yet, that four-speed 883 engine was used in almost all the Sportsters of the ’80s, so it maintained a poor reputation for an entire decade.
Notoriously poor on gas mileage, the ’80s Sportsters have some owners saying the 2.1-gallon gas tank could only deliver about 80 miles before running out of fuel. To add insult to injury, another major complaint surrounding the 1980 line of Sportsters is excessive vibration. For example, one reviewer of the 1989 Sportster wrote in Mortorcycle.com that