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Could there be a more macabre marketing decision than naming a consumable confectionary treat after a dead little girl? How about designing a recreational product to represent the instruments of war that obliterated tens of thousands of human beings? Who would do such a thing? Nobody, we hope, but such a claim has dogged motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson for years, in the form of a rumor that their 1990 FLSTF Fat Boy bike was created as a tribute to the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. Fat Boy photo courtesy of the Harley-Davidson archives Why? The answer to why Harley-Davidson would supposedly do such a thing is as a form of symbolic revenge on the Japanese motorcycle companies who eroded the sales of good ol' American Harley-Davidson bikes during the 1970s and 1980s. The answer to why people would believe such a thing is a tale spun from a collection of manufactured coincidences: All of this is just the fanciful product of someone's imagination, however. The FLSTF is silver simply because it's a nifty color for a motorcycle, the disc wheels were chosen for their look, the gold rings are merely styling touches added to accent certain parts of the bike, and the name Fat Boy comes from the observation that the motorcycle is rather wide when viewed head-on. But, as usual, an elaborate story about secret meanings is so much more interesting than plain old reality.
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