Greg Harris leads the way into the detached three-car garage behind his east side home and begins working on his weekend project: getting a 1969 BMW R/69 US motorcycle ready for another summer.
The 50-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum president and chief executive officer bought the bike just outside Philadelphia seven or eight years ago, a purchase sourced through a friend. He explains that this beauty, its original black paint and leather seat unmarred by almost a half-century on the road, is desired by collectors because it was produced in the last model year and combines technology used to build the first one in 1956 with subsequent innovations — namely, a radically improved suspension system.
“It didn’t need as much work as things I usually get — I usually get things that are in pieces,” the denim-clad Harris says. “But it’s been constant work in upgrading and improving.” He rattles off initial tasks such as replacing the fuel-line hoses, rebuilding the carburetor, adjusting the valves and tuning the magneto and conducting electrical work. “It doesn’t have a starter — you kick-start it,” he points out as he stands up. He kicks the foot pedal, and the motorcycle roars to life.
The bike is just the latest in a series of vintage conveyances Harris has restored and returned to daily use: a 1957 Chevy Bel Air; 1963 and 1976 Chevy Impalas; a 1969 Cadillac Sedan DeVille and 1971 Dodge Dart; 1974, 1980 and 1990 Ford F-150s; a 1983 Ford Ranger, 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser and 2005 Dodge Dakota. The shiny black 2016 Ford F-150 parked in the driveway is his newest vehicle.
“Everything I named here typically had lots of miles,” he explains. “You’re always working on them, not just for fun but also to keep them going.” Yet he still finds restoring and maintaining vehicles relaxing. The manual tasks help him unplug from the technology that keeps all of us connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “You focus on the task at hand.”
The Bucks County, Pennsylvania, native’s hobby is rooted in old-fashioned self-sufficiency. His father, dean of students at a Philadelphia-area school for the hearing-impaired, grew up in the building trades. From his father’s basic knowledge, Harris started working on his own projects with the rest of his family, including his wife and brothers. “We’ve always built things — you’d build your own house, do your own work on the houses, build cabinets, furniture,” he says. “It was fun.” He resurrected his first vehicle, the 1957 Chevy Bel Air, at 15, before he even had a driver’s license.
“You’d get the manual, and you’d figure it out, and you’d talk to friends that knew more than you did and others that helped you,” he says. “Pretty soon, you had something that worked.”
Harris’ passion for restoration isn’t limited to cars — he refurbished old houses with one of his two brothers during the late 1980s and early 1990s after completing work on a graduate degree. His greatest rebuild was tackled in the 14 months after he accepted a job as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s director of broadcast collections: He transformed an 1880s dairy barn on 10 acres near Cooperstown, New York, into a family home.
“It was full of hay and junked cars and pigeons,” he recalls. “[My wife and I] saw it and had a vision of what a great open-plan house it could be.”
Harris maintains the barn as a vacation retreat. The motorcycle is the only restored set of wheels he still owns, unless you count the 1951 Farmall tractor he keeps at the barn for mowing. Almost everything on his list either was gifted or sold during moves.
Ask him about his next project, and he mentions that he’s been looking for a 1950s or 1960s convertible — preferably completely original.
“I enjoy that, when things have dings and imperfections in them,” he says. “It’s part of the story.”