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Archive for the ‘Rumors’ Category
For a motorcycle brand with such a relatively small group of owners, Buell Motorcycles evoke fierce loyalty. So, H-D’s decision to kill the brand hasn’t been well received.
As an expression of that displeasure, Hell For Leather Magazine is offering special T-shirts, for both men and women.
"Free Eric Buell" T-Shirt
That’s the anger. Now comes the sadness. Hell For Leather also has this picture, taken of a dumpster outside Buell’s East Troy factory.
Not all of the baby turtles make it to the ocean.
And now, finally, we come to the rumors.
I got a call this evening from a fellow who related a rumor that, just prior to the decision to eliminate Buell Motorcycles, Harley-Davidson had gotten an offer–or, at least, the proposal to make an offer–from Bombardier (the parent company of Victory Motorcycles and Can-Am Spyders) to purchase the Buell Division from H-D.
Now, nobody else I know has mentioned this, but I did find a mention of this rumor, or, rather, a similar one, at Motorcycle Daily:
There are of course rumors about Erik Buell traveling to Canada to meet with Bombardier (makers of the Can-Am Spyder). The font of this rumor, a guy posting on a chopper forum, claims a reliable source, but his credibility is undermined, as he lists his hometown as “Bonertown” in his profile.
So, I can definitely confirm that there is a rumor about Buell and Bombardier, for all the good that does you. Unfortunately, that’s all I can confirm about Bombardier. Unless Chopper-Boy from Bonertown has really good sources, it’s probably just an internet rumor, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up about Erik Buell applying for Landed Immigrant status in Montreal.
I can say this, however: I do know that there are a couple of people outside Milwaukee who are very interested in talking to Erik Buell about…ummm…pursuing new challenges. As soon as his 15-month non-compete agreement with H-D expires, of course.
And, for right now, that’s all I have to say about that.
UPDATE: What was I thinking? Victory’s parent company is Polaris, not Bombardier.
I‘ve been seeing this pop up for the last few days. Oberdan Bezzi is an Italian motorcycle designer. Sometimes his notions of what a future bike model would look like are just that: notions. But, he is a guy who has some hooks into the major bike shops in Europe, so, sometimes, he’s spot on.
Oberdan Bezzi's BMW R12500GS Concept.
In this particular case, the rumor is that BMW is working on a 12500cc successor to the current 1200cc boxer in their R-Series bikes. It would give the bike maybe, what, 10-15 more ponies, and an extra lb-ft or two? And, it would keep in tradition with past incremental shifts for the R-Bikes, from the 110 to 1150, to 1200. maybe it;s shave a few punds of weight off, too. I dunno.
If I was BMW, though, I’m not sure why I would. Instead, I think the move towards the HP2 boxer engine, with the dual overhead cams would be a better move. They already get 130HP out of that engine.
Of course, if you bumped up that engine to 1250cc, you’d probably get to 140+ HP out of it in the HP2 series.
And, lets’ not forget my previous trip down BMW rumor lane, which is that there will be a 1300cc HP2 boxer, and it will go into the RT and GS.
A few months ago, in April, the May edition of Cycle World magazine (link unavailable, it was print) printed a rumor on page 24 that Harley-Davidson was working on a V-4 power plant for…something. Even Cycle World didn’t know:
Harley-Davidson is rumored to be working on a new V-Four engine. It is unclear whether the engine is for use in traditional H-D products and/or for Buell.
It was an interesting rumor, but nothing’s come out of it yet.
Now, there’s a new rumor floating around, which is that the MoCo is working on a brand new café racer bike.
There might be a pulse after all in the town of Milwaukee. A&R has gotten word that the Sultan of Slow is working on a cafe racer motorcycle, similar to the classic XLCR 1000.
If true (and not flubbed like the V-ROD), Harley-Davidson may have found the happy merger of maintaining its brand identity, and manufacturing a motorcycle for people that never owned a black & white television. We secretly hope this rumor is associated with the Harley-Davidson V4 rumor we heard not so long ago, but that may also then indicate Hell freezing over and the Earth collapsing in on itself like a dying star…
We’re always cautious about rumors here, and even more so when they involve H-D doing something right; so as usual, time will tell on this one.
I, for one, hope so. H-D has such a great brand with so much potential energy, that they could be a powerhouse in motorcycling, if they’d just step out of the 60s.
Italian motorcycle designer Oberdan Bezzi is convinced that Ducati will be revealing a new scooter at the Milan EICMA Motorcycle show in November.
Oberdan thinks the motor will be an 850 and offer a multi-mode transmission like the Aprilia Mana. That’s not a bad assumption; I just had a conversation with a source at Piaggio, who told me Piaggio loves to sell powertrain units to anyone who’ll buy them. “Would they sell one without heads so Ducati could install Desmo heads,” I asked? “Sure” was the answer. Oberdan’s drawing shows the Testastretta motor’s deep sump, so maybe that’s not what he had in mind, but it’d make sense, no? He also envisioned an “S” version, with Öhlins suspension and maybe some lightweight 16-inch wheels as well.
Bezzi also has a concept drawing of this supposed cross between a scooter and a Ducati Monster.
Ducati Scooster
Huh. We’ll see.