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So, you're producing a show about the early days of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. And, of course, you need to have motorcycles like those that Walter and Arthur Davidson and Bill Harley built in a shed in Milwaukee and raced in incredibly dangerous ways.

But the few that exist are in museums. It's not as if you can go down to the junkyard and pick up a century-old Harley.

"There's just nothing out there that looks remotely like a 1903 Harley-Davidson motor," said Alex Wheeler, who built the bikes for the Discovery Channel's three-part, six-hour "Harley and the Davidsons," which airs Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. "So we took a very big, brave decision to actually manufacture the motors from scratch."

Working from 100-year-old pictures and some info from Harley-Davidson was "a truly extraordinary feat," said Gabe Luna, who stars as motorcycle racer Eddie Hasha. "They're steel bikes, steel frames, no shocks, leather belt drives.

"I mean, the whole shoot was setting out to do impossible things and then the movie gods shining on us and actually accomplishing those things."

"Harley and the Davidsons" is "based on a true story" — the story of the founding of the iconic motorcycle company and the first decades of its often-troubled existence — up to the 1930s. The present-day Harley-Davidson company opened up its archives to the producers, and family members agreed to be interviewed.

"We were, as much as is humanly possible, respectful of the historical facts and everything we had learned about the bikes, the characters and the company," Doganis said.

It's not a story about machines, but about the people behind them.

But the machines are rather remarkable. And remarkably dangerous.

The races re-created for the program feature motorcycles that have neither gears nor brakes and that travel upwards of 100 mph in events that are unbelievably hazardous when compared to anything that exists today.

There's a big race scene at the end of Part 1 that Doganis compared to a "gladiatorial arena."

The early races were on "a wooden track, which, the moment it got covered in oil — and these things would spew oil — became incredibly slick, like an ice rink," he said. These races were "not only hugely dangerous to the riders" but "also massively dangerous to the spectators."

"Harley and the Davidsons" re-creates one such accident that killed two racers and five spectators and injured dozens more in the ensuing panic.

"It was really the birth of an incredibly exciting sport, but one which wasn't yet regulated at the time," Doganis said.

It's very exciting to watch in a scripted drama. It's almost unimaginable that this actually happened.

There's drama not just in the racing, but in what's happening inside and outside the company. At the same time, "Harley and the Davidsons" captures the romance behind the motorcycles.

Jessica Camacho, who stars as motorcycle racer Reya, had no experience riding motorcycles of any kind and was "quite terrified."

"It was quite an intense experience my first time being on a bike, and I am a huge fan now," she said. "I can see myself on a bike a couple years from now maybe in a desert road somewhere. It's just romantic. It's totally exciting. It's one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done."

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce. —

On TV

"Harley and the Davidsons" airs Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 5-7, on the Discovery Channel — at 7 and 9 p.m. on DirecTV and the Dish Network; at 10 p.m. and midnight on Comcast.