This would be far from the first time that a vehicle has been modified for a film or television project, from the Panem peacekeeper trucks in “The Hunger Games” series to the famous DeLorean from “Back to the Future.” Plus, it’s not like this would be the first electric hog Harley-Davidson produced. Everyone wins, right?
Not exactly. This motorcycle was vintage, an original from the 1930s. In the eyes of some motorcycle enthusiasts, that made the very idea of tinkering with it downright heretical. Some such enthusiasts were, according to Rhys, also on the team whose job it was to take this beautiful vehicle apart and put it back together as an E.V. They were less than thrilled. “And when we were out on location it did — it divided a lot of people,” said Rhys. “There were a lot of, kind of, predominantly gentlemen of a certain age who would come up and say, ‘Is this a 1930 XYZ?’ I go, ‘Yes, it is.’ They went, ‘Why can’t I hear it?'”
Naturally, Rhys would then have to break the news to these folks about what had been done to this classic Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Not everyone was horrified, though many were. “About half said, ‘That’s incredible,'” he admitted, “and the other half said, ‘That’s an abomination.'”