2025 HARLEY-DAVIDSON FAT BOY – THE IMPERIOUS FATNESS

I remember when the Fat Boy first appeared in 1988. I was working at Ozbike, and my world was as outlaw as it came – apehangers, straight-through pipes, insane runs and even crazier parties, and some poor-quality time spent in handcuffs. Halcyon days.

 

“Who was the genius who decided a good name for a bike would be ‘Fat Boy’?” I remember telling anyone who would listen. I’m certain I even wrote an editorial about it back then.

But while its name might have jarred us all in unmeasurable ways, the Fat Boy was an instant and ongoing sales-success. How could it not be? It had that mythic “X-Factor” in terms of appeal everyone tries for and rarely achieves.

It was the first production bike we had seen that came out with solid alloy wheels. It was metallic grey (before everyone started painting their bikes grey) with yellow highlights, and there were rumours – probably started by people like me – that it was created to celebrate the bombing of Hiroshima.

You’ve not heard that? Well, the theory kind goes like this: The name “Fat Boy” came from combining the names of the two atomic bombs the US Airforce dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Fat Man and Little Boy. They also happened to be grey with yellow writing. Harley’s response to this was: “Nah, we just called it that cos it was fat”.

 

But never mind. We all ran with that because it suited us to. And many of us ran straight into a Harley dealership and bought the Fat Boy. I was damn close to doing so as well, but then I got a Heritage at a pirce I couldn’t say no to, but I have since that day always had a “thing” for the fat one.

The Fat Boy is, of course, no fatter than a lot of other Harleys. But it has always projected a style that spoke more to being a big-boned sumbitch, than say the Softail. The latest iteration is certainly no exception, and having ridden all of them over the years, the 2025 version is way to hell and gone the best one.

One of the things that always bedevilled the early Fat Boys were the 16-inch sold alloy wheels. A good crosswind would make the already challenging handling even more exciting. None of us cared about that though. We still rode the bastards with feral intent, and only the more sober of us would opt for the better-handling, twin-shocked FXRs. The rest of us wallowed in the fatness of the Fat Boy, the Heritage, and the Softail Wide Glide. They were the ones that attracted the most strippers and looked the coolest.

So those 16-inch wheels have gone, and they are not solid alloy anymore either. Harley drilled holes in them for a bit, but has now offered a set of 18-inchers with bigger-radius hubs and short spokes. They look great, and the bike no longer becomes a spinnaker in a cross wind.

The 2025 Fat Boy is also the only Harley that has retained its alloy headlight cowl. This chews my old nostalgia gland a bit. I had an FLH Shovelhead and it too had that iconic cowl. I’m fairly certain the new one is not held together with self-tapping wood screws, but. For sure, the current brilliant headlight is lightyears ahead of the old ones.

In terms of performance, the new Fat Boy sits in the middle of the six new Softail models Harley launched this year. So, you have the Heritage and the Street Bob, who have the lowest-output 117-cube engine, then you have the Breakout and the Fat Boy, with a slightly more tweaked 117-cuber, and then the there are the hot rod Low Rider S and Low Rider ST with the high-output 117.

I think that’s a hugely appropriate allocation of engines. You don’t think so? Cool. Nothing stopping you tweaking your Fat Boy engine into the High Output iteration. Look, I’d probably do it too, and it’s nice to know I’m not alone in my wrongness.

 

But for most people, the Fat Boy is tuned just right for its abilities. The Fat Boy, as you may have guessed, is not the one that’s great at carving corners. It’s thankfully not the vague, prepare-to-die situation the old twin-16-inch-wheeled bastard would serve you when you got excited. But it’s no Low Rider S either.

The Fat Boy is, unapologetically, what it was always meant to be. Imperious. A style icon. It has always had a genuine “presence”. And it’s quite a dab hand at doing a bit of touring, if you’re minded that way. It’s comfortable, and it handles far more predictably than you might think. Just don’t be asking dumb questions of it.

As I explained in the my 2025 Softail launch review HERE, the suspension has been tweaked and is now far better-behaved than it was. Gone are the progressive-rate springs which gave all Softails, with their limited-travel suspension, some harsh bottoming-out action on bigger bumps. Normal progression springs have fixed all that.

There are also three engine modes, Rain, Road, and Sport, and in this variant of the 117-cube engine, you can just leave it in Sport, and enjoy the extra snap you’re getting.

I really like where Harley has taken the Fat Boy. I liked it when it was a challenge to ride (precisely because it was a challenge), and I like it a damn sight more now that it’s better at doing everything you’d expect it to do.

And it still looks the bomb…erm, no not THAT bomb.