Harley-Davidson has grown from a two-person operation in a garden shed becoming one of the largest and best known motorcycle manufacturers in the world. Harley engine deals were mostly one- or two-cylinder models, but the company’s top executives and engineers were pressured to abandon their V-twin wheelhouse after Honda launched the Four-cylinder CB750 and CN750 in 1969 and Kawasaki responded with its own superbike, the Z1a few years later.

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Harley’s response was the Nova, a prototype originally planned for release in 1981 with a four-cylinder engine. More than a dozen were built and more versions were planned to follow, but Harley-Davidson was in a period of transition in ownership and management. In the final weeks of 1968, Harley-Davidson owners accepted a purchase offer from American Machine and Foundry, or AMF. That company was best known for making recreational sports equipment like bowling balls and tennis rackets, but it held on to Harley-Davidson for a dozen years.

The AMF years are considered a low point for Harley-Davidson, but in the late 1970s, Vice President Jeffrey Bleustein held a meeting where company executives and technicians first discussed times of the problem. Evolution engine, which would make its first appearance in 1984. Another topic on the agenda was the development of a high-performance water-cooled engine which would become the Nova project. Engineering manager Mike Hillman partnered with Porsche, and the 30-person Nova team was split between Milwaukee and Germany.

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In an effort to keep the project safe from curious journalists, Harley also established a secret testing center in Talladega, Alabama, and limited the recruitment of outsiders. “We had to reduce the numbers because of the secrecy of the project,” Hillman recalls, “but little information escaped.” The Nova program was supposed to include 400 and 500 cubic centimeter V-twins, V-4s with exactly twice the displacement of those two engines, and 1,200 and 1,500 cubic centimeter V6 engines.

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Willie Davidson, who was then leading the design team, wanted to keep the appearance of the new bikes simplified, which resulted in creative placement of components. The radiator and fuel tank were mounted under the seat, while the standard fuel tank location was used for an air box and fan to cool the engine.

The combined American and German Nova team produced more than a dozen prototypes, all equipped with the 800 cubic centimeter V4. Hillman explained Harley’s thinking in an interview with Hagerty. “At the time, we thought Harley needed a new lineup, to complement rather than replace the V-twins,” he said. “Japanese manufacturers were flooding the market with different products and we wanted something that was competitive.”

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The test team found that the Nova was capable of exceeding 120 mph and handled well, and that everything seemed fine for a 1981 version. But that year, AMF resold Harley at a group of managers that included William G. Davidson, a descendant of the company’s founder, Arthur Davidson. This transition was accompanied by the need to reduce spending, so one of the two major programs had to disappear. Harley’s new management team chose the Evolution V-twin project over the Nova, but the Nova program was kept alive for at least another year.

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Hillman and Harley-Davidson President Vaughn Beals even sought funding from outside the company, but Hillman explained how time was up for the Nova. “We actually found a place to build it, in Italy,” he says. “But strategically it didn’t make any sense. Then bike sales fell towards the end of the ’80s. At that time it was less competitive anyway.”

Harley-Davidson has prospered since the mid-1980s, thanks in part to the strength of the Evolution engine and its successor, the Revolution. Without the Nova program that accompanied Evolution, Harley’s story could have taken a very different path.