This 1938 Harley-Davidson EL Is 83 Years Old and 354 Times More Valuable

If you ask me, that expression should be more in the lines of “like a knucklehead.”

For the past month or so, as we were uncovering the highest selling motorcycles of the spring, we’ve seen our fair share of two-wheelers changing hands for big bucks. Hell, consider that the top ten most valuable such machines netted close to $2 million in Las Vegas at the beginning of the month. And eight of them were Harley-Davidsons.

The one you’re looking at is part of that valuable pack of eight. It is an EL model coming to us all the way from 1938, and after going through a professional restoration process not long ago. It was listed for sale by Mecum, and it went for $154,000.

Now, that’s about as much as someone else would pay for a 1969 Mustang Mach 1, but that’s not a fair comparison, to be honest. But we have something better.

Back when it was originally made, the 61ci, four-speed transmission machine had a retail price of $435. That means the price for which it went during the event this May is 354 times higher. And even if you’d ask us to account for inflation (which would make the original MSRP around $8,122 today), the sale price is still 18 times higher. Take that, wine!

As usual when it comes to these things, we are not being told who the buyer of the motorcycle is. What we can guess is that whoever purchased it will probably keep it close for a while, before putting it up for grabs once more. And only time will tell if there is still room for growth when it comes to the value of this thing.