A hundred years of Harleys: South San Francisco’s Dudley Perkins Company celebrates centennial

Now owned by Janet and Thomas Perkins, their son Christopher handles sales and is acting vice president of the company. Growing up around motorcycles, he said the “gearhead” mentality has been passed down from his great-grandfather who raced them before starting the business.

“He was in his late teens when he started, he was a mechanic and very hands on,” Christopher Perkins said of his great-grandfather, “and he just basically started a shop.” His grandfather Dudley Perkins Jr. took it over and his three sons, Thomas Perkins and his two brothers, were all involved in their early years.

“And now my dad and mom are in charge,” Perkins said.

The warehouse is filled to the brim with Harleys, even with San Francisco police labels on expensive models waiting to be serviced. Crammed into spaces in San Francisco, the company has moved south to spread out so they could put sales and services in the same building. Their 1914 location was on Market Street in San Francisco, but then moved around the city before ending up on the corner of Northpoint Street and Taylor Street at Fisherman’s Wharf with their second larger location now in South San Francisco on Corey Way.

“We’ve been through many ups and downs, the last 10 years have kind of sucked, but being able to persevere through it gives you kind of a good appreciation for things,” Perkins said.

This was not the first time it went through an economic downturn. During the Great Depression, the company said it sold only 15 motorcycles in one year. The company now sells motorcycle gear, parts and Harley Davidson branded apparel, as well as keeping the entire first floor dedicated to servicing Harleys of all shapes and sizes.

“The biggest change is the bikes, it was a lot easier to work on your own bike 100 years ago, and it was just an engine with parts that were easily fixed. Nowadays, a computer runs the bike a lot more,” Perkins said.

The building’s entrance features an enlarged photo of a young Dudley Perkins Sr. holding his early model Harley on one wheel in the air on a grassy terrain.

Perkins Sr. had started the dealership a mere 11 years after the Harley was invented in 1903, he has been cited in an August 1975 article by Ed Remitz in Cycle World as having seen the entire history of motorcycles unfold before his death in 1978.

Yet, Harleys and the types of people who ride them have changed dramatically over the last 100 years since then, Perkins said.

While Harleys have become mechanically more advanced since Dudley Perkins Sr. first started the dealership, the Perkinses hope that their family will always be a part of the dealership.

Christopher Perkins has a sister who had worked in with the company during high school, but is now doing unrelated work. He has two sons but plans on putting “no pressure” on them to pursue the family business in the coming years. Whether the company will be run his sons or not, he hopes that the business can go on for “another 100 years,” he said.

A centennial celebration Sept. 13 blocked off Corey Way for a street fair which included a motorcycle show with multiple models of bikes from each year since 1914, beer and food. Approximately 4,000 people attended and Perkins said it was a good way to celebrate not only being a business that survived 100 years, but a family-owned business that survived 100 years — with the people who made it possible.

“The best thing is our clientele,” Perkins said.

While stereotypically, the kinds of people who rode bikes were limited to one group, or the “male middle-aged biker,” the types of people who ride Harleys have become younger and more diverse, he said.

“We have everyone: old, young, guys, girls, straight, bi, every religion, high school kids, everyone,” Perkins said. “It’s interesting to see how this one machine can bring all these people together.”