This nameplate began in 1971 with the FX Super Glide, a landmark Harley-Davidson cruiser that blended a big-twin chassis with a lighter, sportier front end. Harley-Davidson has described it as the company’s first true step into the factory-custom market, and that positioning helped define a whole era of American V-twin styling. Over time, the Super Glide idea evolved through several Harley cruiser families, especially the Dyna series, where the FXD Super Glide became one of the core models and helped carry the nameplate forward for decades.
The original run did not remain continuous forever. Harley-Davidson later retired the Dyna family in 2017, which effectively ended the long modern chapter of the Super Glide within that lineage. After that gap, Harley-Davidson revived the name for 2026 as a limited-production motorcycle, explicitly framing it as a return of one of the brand’s most influential names. That revival makes the history of this nameplate non-continuous, with an early 1971 origin and a later modern comeback.
Enthusiast interest in the Super Glide comes from its role in Harley-Davidson history rather than from any single specification. It is remembered as the bike that helped establish the factory-custom look and set styling cues that influenced later cruiser and Dyna models. Because the name was brought back after a production break, its timeline should be treated as a heritage model with separate production periods rather than a single uninterrupted run.