Harley-Davidson Sportster Iron 883

Harley-Davidson recently unveiled the Iron 883 as the latest addition to its phantom Dark Custom line. The Darks aren’t a separate model line, but more like a sinister club or collection of single models culled from Harley’s prolific arsenal of existing V-Twins: the Dynas, Sportsters and Softails.

The underpinning theme with a Dark is pared-down, no-nonsense styling, eschewing chrome and brightness in favor of muted, basic color schemes – namely black. And for a few of them there’s a decidedly deliberate chopped and bobbed influence.

As a theme, Dark Custom didn’t make an official appearance until the January 2008 introduction of a Softail Springer that received the chopped/bobbed/black-out treatment and the name Cross Bones. It was at this Hollywood premiere-style unveiling of the ‘Bones that Willie G. Davidson and son Bill told the moto-world about the birth of this new shadow series of motorcycles.
Long before its official coming out party, the development of the Dark line started taking shape when the Softail Night Train showed up, and then a VRSC model, the Night Rod Special, went bad-ass in black. Soon thereafter the 1200cc Sportster-based Nightster appeared in the first half of 2007. The Iron 883 marks the second Sportster model to join the Dark Customs and follows closely to the Nightster’s motif.

To help jump start the introduction of the Iron 883 into the Dark Custom line, Harley-Davidson showcased the bike as part of an art gallery opening this past Saturday at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. The media got an early look on Friday, February 6th.

The theme of the gallery opening was “The Art of Rebellion,” and included 10 contemporary fringe artists, each creating a custom-painted Harley gas tank in conjunction with the gallery theme. Among invited creative types was street artist Shepard Fairey, most notable for his “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker that later evolved into the “OBEY Giant” collection. Fairey recently resurged in notoriety by creating the now-iconic Barack Obama HOPE posters used extensively in the former presidential candidate’s successful campaign for the Oval Office.

The gallery of tanks as well as a piece from the artists own collections will be on display and available for purchase. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Art Matters, a charity that supports and encourages the exploration of new ideas and art. One hundred copies of a signed, limited-edition Shepard Fairey poster were given away at the event.

Harley chose the gallery theme to mirror what it calls the “modern rebel culture” that was emerging around the time of the original introduction of the Sportster line in 1957. Indeed, H-D was clearly drawn to the original bobber style when it first penned the Iron 883. Though the bike is essentially a Sportster 883 Low, Harley was able to shorten overall length by three inches and shave 18 pounds off the Low’s claimed running order weight of 583 pounds.

The Iron forges its own style yet takes numerous cues from the Nightster with short fenders, fork gaiters, side-mounted license plate holder, staggered straight exhaust, and of course, black pieces galore. Following in the Nightster’s footsteps, the Iron furthers its minimalist appearance by incorporating the functions of top/turn/taillight in a pair of red LED lights on the rear fender. This is a very cool thing on a cruiser, Dark Custom or not.

A nice accent would’ve been black exhaust pipes instead of chrome; still, the matte black paint and oodles of other basic black finishes give potential owners a good canvas to continue their own dark customizing. If you’re a purist, you can keep the bike as is – simple – just as true bobbers were meant to be.

Like its larger-displaced brother the Nightster, the Iron makes rebellion and outlaw style accessible to a wider audience by way of its very low 26.3-inch solo seat height, and an equally low starting MSRP of $7,899. The Iron 883 is available in Black Denim and Brilliant Silver Denim colors.

For 2009 the Dark Custom line consists of the Iron 883, Nightster, Cross Bones, Street Bob, Fat Bob and Night Train.