Auto review: Harley-Davidson's new Ultra Limited is beating with a brand-new heart

Harley-Davidson isn't called the Motor Company for nothing. The venerable American motorcycle maker, the nation's dominant brand, builds some of the best power plants on the planet.

Indeed, the company's motors are so good that fans may overlook the fact that their motorcycles don't always measure up. Harleys can feel hot, heavy, and hard to handle - as well as more expensive, less dependable, and more difficult to ride than comparable bikes from competitive brands.

The 2017 Ultra Limited, Harley's flagship touring bike, may quiet a few critics. It features the new Milwaukee-Eight - Harley's first entirely new engine in 18 years - and the Milwaukee-Eight is a winner.

Harley management, keen to prop up sales, has made a concerted effort to ask buyers what they want, and to deliver it.

With the Milwaukee-Eight, Harley engineers were attempting to increase power, reduce heat, and limit vibration while maintaining fuel efficiency and emissions compliance.

The result is a 107-cubic-inch twin-cylinder engine with four valves per cylinder (double the previous generation, and hence "Eight" in the name) and a new liquid-cooling system that uses both oil and water to manage engine heat.

Harley doesn't release horsepower numbers - though independent reports say the new engine makes 73.5 horsepower - but puts the new engine's torque at 113 pound feet. That's an improvement over the 105 pound feet on previous models. The company calls the Milwaukee-Eight, which also comes in a 114-cubic-inch version on the CVO Limiteds and CVO Street Glides, "the most powerful, coolest-running motors we've ever built."

The improvements are palpable. Over a weeklong test of the Ultra Limited, I was impressed. Power comes on very low in the rev range, smoothly accelerating from dead stop, then rises nicely to redline.

The idle has dropped - the result of software that kills the rear half of the V-twin engine when it's not needed - and the low-end torque feels even more impressive.

It's also cooler, partly because the exhaust pipes have been tucked farther away from the rider's legs, and partly because the catalytic converter has been moved. There's considerably less engine heat at idle - as in, stuck in traffic, or at a stoplight, where you really notice it - and on the fly. Vibration in the handlebars and foot pegs has been cut, too. It's an all-around smoother ride.

On the freeway, liberated from the city, the Ultra Limited begins to fulfill the Harley-Davidson promise. Built for the open road, the bike roars up to speed and then settles into a righteous rhythm. There's so much available horsepower that I didn't even use the fifth and sixth gears until I left civilization behind. Cruising at 80 mph in fourth gear felt like riding at half that speed.

But, it's still a Harley. The bigger, more efficient engine changes the power-to-weight ratio, but it doesn't change the weight. This is a massive machine - more than eight feet long, and weighing 908 pounds.

There's a price for all this new power, but it's not much. The base MSRP for the Ultra Limited is $26,999, up slightly from $26,399 for last year's model. That puts the Milwaukee-Eight-powered Ultra at almost the top of the Harley price list.