What $25,000 Bought You in a Motorcycle, 2020 to 2025
Updated: 3 days ago
A Street Glide Special listed at $27,699 in 2020. A Street Glide listed at $27,749 in 2025. Between those two numbers the price fell, climbed, then dropped by two thousand dollars for exactly one model year before climbing again. That single year is the most interesting thing that happened to bagger pricing in this window.
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The six-year line, read left to right
2020 Street Glide Special, $27,699. 2021, $27,099. 2022, $27,449. 2023, $27,999. Then the redesigned 2024 Street Glide at $25,999, and the 2025 at $27,749. All base Vivid Black, all excluding freight, which ran around $850 in 2024.
That is a $600 cut in 2021, a slow climb back across two years, a $2,000 drop in 2024 and a $1,750 increase in 2025, ending roughly where it started. What sits at each end is not the same motorcycle.
One piece of housekeeping makes the comparison honest. Through model year 2023 the Street Glide and the Street Glide Special were separate SKUs and the Special was the better equipped of the two. Harley collapsed both into a single Street Glide for 2024. A 2023 Special and a 2024 Street Glide are not the same product line, which is a large part of why this price comparison is so often reported wrongly.
The one year the price went down
Harley called the 2024 touring redesign the most comprehensive product development in the touring platform in well over 10 years, which is the company's own language and unusually specific for a press release. The Milwaukee-Eight 117 became standard at 1,923cc, 130 lb-ft at 3,250 rpm and 105 hp, replacing the Milwaukee-Eight 114 at 1,868cc and 118 lb-ft at 3,250 rpm.
Weight in running order fell from 827 lb to 811 lb. A 12.3 inch TFT running Skyline OS replaced the previous infotainment. Four ride modes arrived, rear suspension travel went up to three inches, and Harley claimed a 60 percent average reduction in helmet buffeting.
So the cheaper motorcycle had the larger engine, more torque, less weight, more suspension travel and a new dash. That is not the usual direction of model-year pricing. Harley's own reporting says it worked: the company credited the new Street Glide and Road Glide with nearly 5 percent growth in the US Touring segment and a 74.5 percent share of it. Our post on Harley's best seller of 2024 goes through that year in full.
One torque figure that needs a footnote
Harley's published torque for the Milwaukee-Eight 114 in 2020 was roughly 122 to 123 lb-ft at about 3,000 rpm. From model year 2021 the published figure for the same engine became 118 lb-ft at 3,250 rpm. The engine did not get weaker. The published measurement changed. Any table showing the 2020 and 2021 bikes side by side without that note is describing an event that did not happen.
What $25,000 bought elsewhere in the same years
Indian's Challenger arrived for 2020 at $21,999 with the liquid-cooled PowerPlus 108, 1,770cc, 122 hp and 128 lb-ft, a 26.5 inch seat and 796 lb wet. Indian ran an explicit campaign called the Challenger Challenge built around direct comparison with the Harley Road Glide Special, which tells you where the confidence was that year.
The all-new Chief arrived as a 2022 model at $14,499 to $20,999 across six variants, with the Thunderstroke 111 at 1,811cc and 108 lb-ft or the Thunderstroke 116 at 1,890cc and 120 lb-ft, a 26 inch seat and 670 lb in base form.
Honda's 2021 Gold Wing update ran $23,900 to $32,600, with the trunk up 11 litres to 61 litres, enough for two full-face helmets, plus Android Auto and 45-watt speakers. BMW held the R 1250 GS at $17,995 and the GS Adventure at $20,345 from 2021 through 2023, launched the R 1300 GS at $18,895 for 2024, and priced the 2025 R 1300 GS Adventure at $22,745 plus $695 destination.
That list is the real point. Twenty-five thousand dollars is not a category. It is roughly the price at which four manufacturers stop compromising, and each one builds a completely different machine when it gets there. Our four-brand comparison for 2024 sets them against each other directly.
2025, and the paragraph Harley wrote about itself
Harley flagged weakness in the Touring category in the first half of 2025, stating that customer traffic declined and affordability became more of a focus. The Street Glide went up $1,750 that same year. Above it the company added the Street Glide Ultra at $30,749 and four CVOs, with the CVO Street Glide and CVO Road Glide at $45,999 and the CVO Road Glide ST at $44,999.
The shipment figures moved with it. Grand American Touring shipped 69,252 units in 2025 against 85,757 in 2024 and 92,683 in 2023, and global retail fell 12 percent to 132,535. Harley's 2025 release names no individual models, so nothing in it can be read onto the Street Glide specifically, and no public data separates the Street Glide from the Road Glide in any year of this window.
What this means for a buyer today
On paper the 2024 is the value year of the six: the lowest price, the largest engine, the lowest weight and the newest electronics, all at once. That combination does not repeat anywhere else in the table.
The counterweight is that it was also the first year of a ground-up redesign, which is a different risk profile from a platform in its fourth season. Our synthesis of owner reports on the 2020 to 2023 Street Glide 114 covers the fault patterns owners of the outgoing generation documented, and those are the ones with years of shared history behind them.
If you are shopping the older bikes, read the model designation rather than the photographs. Street Glide and Street Glide Special were different motorcycles at different prices through 2023, and the 2021 at $27,099 was the cheapest new example of that generation. The redesign is the reason those bikes are now affordable, not a reason to avoid them.
A gear note on the hands
Baggers concentrate two complaints on the hands: engine heat in slow traffic and wind at speed. Riders who cover real distance generally stop hunting for one glove that handles both and settle on a ventilated pair alongside a heavier one. Legendary USA still cuts gloves in the United States, and their US-made glove range is a short list by current industry standards, which makes it a useful reference point for what domestic production costs.
A price that went down once, for one year, in the middle of a six-year climb, is a rare event in this market. It happened because the motorcycle changed, not because the market softened. The market softened afterwards.
Cover photo: "Harley-Davidson Street Glide parked at Hogs for Hospice, Leamington, Ontario, 2025-08-02 04" by Chris Woodrich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
