Willie G Davidson retires from Harley

Willie G. Davidson, 78, who bought the company back for the family, returned it to record profits for several years and has styled some of the most iconic models will retire from full-time employment with the Milwaukee icon after nearly 50 years.

However, "Willie G.'' will remain as a brand ambassador and be involved in "special design projects'' as Chief Styling Officer Emeritus after he retires on April 30. 

The grandson of company founder William A. Davidson and son of second company president William H. Davidson joined the company as its first head of styling in 1963. 

It seems fitting that with the creator of the 1971 Super Glide ($20,231) stepping out of the saddle, the popular Dyna model makes a return to the fleet in Australia. 

Other models Willie G has been credited for establishing include the Low Rider, Heritage Softail Classic, Fat Boy, Street Glide and Harley's first water-cooled model, the controversial V-Rod 10 years ago. 

"Everything we do in styling is based on the notion that form follows function, but both report to emotion,'' he says. 

Willie G. is also noted as one of 13 Harley-Davidson executives who bought the company back from American Machine and Foundry in 1981. 

There followed two decades of rebuilding with a run of record profits, the purchase of Italian sportsbike company MV Agusta and annual sales hitting 340,000. 

However, with many of those sales made in the US on H-D loans, the subprime loan collapse plunged the company into a massive $1.9 billion of debt with a stock price of $10, the lowest in 20 years. 

Executives responded with a fire sale of MV Agusta and the axing of its own sportsbike off-shoot, Buell. 

The US government also handed H-D a $700 million loan as part of an automotive industry bailout. 

Willie G. is now leaving the company as it starts to recover with a stock price of $50, a factory making knockdown models in India and an 11 per cent increase in sales worldwide and a better-than-expected 12 per cent increase in revenue. 

Sales in Australia were up 5.8 per cent last year.