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After the downsized 975cc Nightster, is the Harley-Davidson Pan America next?

Another slip up in the accessories department of H-D?

Earl Lee Earl Lee on Apr 19, 2022
Harley Davidson Pan America

Bikes and accessories go hand-in-glove for OEM and aftermarket brands alike. Harley-Davidson is no stranger to customization and, as such, the brand fields a ton of modding options for bikers to purchase and play around with. This time, perhaps the brand was a little overzealous when launching some of its accessories for the Harley-Davidson Pan America, that it slipped up a little bit of information regarding what’s next for the American brand’s adventure nameplate. 

Related:
Harley-Davidson introduces the new Nightster as its entry-level Sportster

As covered by other sources, the engine of the new Nightster from H-D was close to confirmed when several media outlets unearthed some pretty compelling evidence with regard to the displacement of the brand’s newest model. Even before the launch, quite a few H-D fans and news outlets already knew what to expect thanks to some billet aluminum mirrors. Funny how it all panned out—pun definitely intended. 

Now, the brand appears to have committed the same mistake all over again having listed a lockable fuel cap for the current Pan America 1250 with the (now removed) product details reading: 

“Fits ‘21-later RA965S, RA975, RA1250, and RA1250S models.”
Harley Davidson’s Accessories Department (I guess)

Motorcycle.com was able to catch a screenshot of H-D’s blunder and publish a story. The listing has since been edited to only include the RA1250 and RA1250S product codes. 

So how is this conclusive or compelling evidence? H-D likes to give its bikes codes just like any other manufacturer, and the Pan America is known as the RA1250, at least in Harley’s books. Meanwhile, the “S” at the end tells us that the Special trim will fit the part in question. However, why do we see “RA975” and “RA965S” in the mix? 

Given that H-D codes the Pan America nameplate with “RA,” it’s not totally out of the blue to infer that we might see a Pan America 975 and Pan America 965 Special in the future, at least based on what we can infer from the source material. This mistake might be the last for a while from Harley-Davidson, as the brand quickly edited its product page as soon as a story was published. Why did it happen twice? Perhaps the accessories department published the pages all at once and forgot to check whether they left out some very interesting details within. Maybe we should start combing through the rest of H-D’s accessories to ascertain what the brand will launch next? 

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