The All-New 2025 Harley-Davidson® Pan America® 1250 ST saves the day in Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts*.
As told to Steven Richards
Artwork courtesy of Marvel Studios
The misfit group of deadly operatives known as the Thunderbolts rumbles through a lonely, desolate desert in a slow, struggling stretch limousine. Behind the wheel, Red Guardian, once the Soviet Union’s answer to Captain America and now desperate to relive his glory days, wrestles with the sluggish machine. His estranged daughter, Yelena Belova, a highly trained assassin searching for purpose, rides shotgun. In the back, John Walker, who once carried the mantle of Captain America but is now dismissed as a “dime-store version” of the hero, sits alongside Ghost, a lethal operative with the ability to phase through solid matter.
Their uneasy tension shatters when a convoy of Humvees roars into attack formation, unleashing a hail of .50-caliber gunfire from roof-mounted guns. The limousine is too slow to outrun them, leaving the Thunderbolts with no choice but to roll down the windows and return fire. A single bullet finds its mark, detonating one of the 6,000-pound military vehicles and sending it skyward. The group seems delightfully perplexed—until, through the smoke and gunfire, they realize the explosive shot came from Bucky Barnes, a former assassin known as the Winter Soldier, tearing through the battlefield on the all-new 2025 Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 ST.
Set to hit theaters on May 2, 2025, Thunderbolts* brings together a team of assassins, outcasts, and fallen heroes who must work together after realizing they’ve been betrayed by their employer, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. With nowhere to turn and the odds stacked against them, they must find a way to survive—and fight back. In the film, we see the 149-horsepower Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 ST perform incredible, scene-stealing stunts without CGI. To find out how it performed under pressure, we sat down with stunt coordinator Heidi Moneymaker and stunt rider Joe Dryden to talk about the Pan America 1250 ST’s role in Thunderbolts* and its place in the Marvel Universe.
Harley-Davidson: Heidi, tell us about your role on set and how you help bring a film like this to life.
Heidi Moneymaker: First and foremost, I must ensure my entire team is always safe. I mean, we have a calculated risk in what we do, always, but it's calculated. If I can mitigate that risk and make sure that, whether it's bumps or bruises or little things, everyone walks away safe, then I've done my job. From there, I liaise with the director and the producers about what they are going to need and what the production is asking for, and then I hire all the personnel, bring in my team, and we basically set up and design the action, choreographing the fights and presenting those to the director.
Harley-Davidson: How did you approach the scene with Sebastian Stan riding the Pan America 1250 ST as The Winter Soldier?
Heidi Moneymaker: When I first started doubling for Scarlett Johansson [Black Widow], I rode the [Livewire] and while it wasn’t your typical Harley, it was a bigger and heavier bike, so going into this film I expected something similar, and as we were creating the chase sequence prior to having the bike, we were wondering what we would be able to do with the Pan America. But once it showed up and we played around some, the bike was agile and had more of a sport feel to it, and before long there were all sorts of endos and crazy stunts that were being done without issue.
Harley-Davidson: Joe, is that how you felt about the Pan America 1250 ST as well?
Joe Dryden: I was not familiar with the Pan America platform, but once they sent me a rendering of the bike, I was all in. I knew what they were going for with it, and I knew the suspension and the brakes were going to be perfect for what we wanted. I hardly had to do anything to it for it to perform as well as it did. It required small lever adjustments and minor front suspension tuning to give me the most traction and make me feel very confident.
Harley-Davidson: Tell us about the experience on set in Green River, Utah, filming the limousine chase scene.
Joe Dryden: Well, we were supposed to film on a section that had brand-new pavement, but the production needed the smooth asphalt for something else, so we got pushed down the way to an old desert road that had barely any pavement and a whole lot of potholes. But fortunately, the bike really delivered for me, and honestly, I had no issues with anything that we needed. It did everything I asked of it, and I was able to find traction in places that I probably shouldn't have been able to. The brakes and suspension set this bike apart from every other Harley-Davidson that I've ridden; it has the soul of a Harley, but it handles a lot more like a dual-sport, or maybe even more like a sport bike, what with that wheel-and-tire package. It finds traction really well and handles really easily, and while you can toss it around and make it do incredible things, you know you’re still on a Harley-Davidson.
Harley-Davidson: So, it’s safe to assume you’re now a fan of the Pan America 1250 ST?
Joe Dryden: I mean, this bike performed with far less effort than I anticipated, you know? It took a lot of stress off my shoulders, not having to force the bike to do what it's supposed to do. I could just focus on what I'm doing, which matters when you’re riding around three Humvees on dirt and can barely see while you’re following a camera vehicle at 60 miles an hour—not having to worry about the bike and being able to focus on what I was doing made my job easy.
Harley-Davidson: Heidi, what do you hope people understand when they go to the movie theater to see Thunderbolts*?
Heidi Moneymaker: What you're seeing in the action is all practical. There might be some visual effects here and there, but we did all these things for real, which doesn't always happen because of the expense, time, safety, and all that. Especially in this desert chase sequence, I hope people think about the fact that there's nothing in here that isn’t real, and you're seeing the stock Pan America 1250 ST weave through the convoy and stand on its front wheel as it comes to a stop.
