Dale's Motorcycle Blog

Posts Tagged ‘MV Agusta’

Italians seem to be pretty happy that MV Agusta is back in Italian hands, “where it belongs” according to Italian motorsport enthusiasts. Sadly, though, while Harley-Davidson gave MV a reprieve from an untimely death, it remains to be seen whether that temporary reprieve turns into a permanent salvation.  Hiring Massimo Bordi, who did fantastic work making Ducati successful, as MV’s new CEO is a good first step, but some of MV’s old problems are still there. Before the Harley purchase, MV produced fantastically expensive bikes in very small numbers.  Reliability problems were an issue, and troublesome one, as MV Agusta dealers were few and far between.  The slightest mechanical problem might keep an MV off the road for weeks or months while some arcane part was produced and shipped from Italy.

But that may be changing.  In an interview with the Italian web site Il Solo 24 Ore (Italian), MV’s new owner–or is that re-owner–Claudio Castiglioni, opens up about the bike he hopes will save the company.

Pictured at left is the brand new MV Agusta F3.  According to Castiglione, the F3 is powered by a 675cc triple, just like the Triumph Daytona 675.  This bike will come in a base model, as well as an upgraded “sport” model.

Where things get really interesting is that Castiglioni quotes a base model price of €9,000 ($11,520 at today’s exchange rate), and a price of around €10,500 ($13.440) for the sport edition. The actual price in US terms probably won’t reflect straight exchange rate calculations, however, so, we might see a price of around $10,000 here in the US.  They’re also planning an as yet unnamed Brutale-like model of this bike, which will probably go for somewhere in the vicinity of $9,000, pleasing the fans of naked bikes.

At that price point, the F3 seriously undercuts the $12,995 sticker price for the base model of the Ducati 848, and even puts it in direct competition with the Triumph Daytona’s MSRP of $10,000. With pricing at that level, Castiglioni hopes that MV can sell 10,000 of these bikes next year.

Having said that, it’s still an open question whether MV even has the capacity to produce 10,000 supersports in the next year. If they can–and they can sell them–then MV stands a good chance of not returning to it’s pre-2009 state of slowly running into the ground.

When Harley-Davidson announced that MV would be sold back to Castiglioni, they didn’t mention the price of the sale. As a publicly traded company, however, you can’t actually keep that a secret.

Via the Wall Street Journal, according to the company’s 8-K filing, the sale price was 3 Euros. But get this:

In the filing Harley said it “contributed 20 million Euros to MV as operating capital” that was put in escrow and is available to the buyer over a 12-month period. The buyer is Claudio Castiglioni, who, with his brother Gianfranco, ran MV Agusta for years before selling it to Harley two years ago for about $109 million.

So, H-D paid $109 million for MV, they then had to pay $162.6 million in write-downs to cover MV’s bad debts, and then they had to pay Castiglioni another $20 million to take it back.

I’m sorry, but that’s just hilarious!

But, of course, I’m not a Harley shareholder. They probably aren’t as amused to learn this.

It seems like only yesterday that Carlo Castiglioni sold the iconic MV Agusta brand to Harley Davidson.  Now, two years later, he’s bought it back–for less than he sold it to Harley-Davidson.

Along with Giovanni Castiglioni, the company will be headed by Mr. Massimo Bordi, a well known Italian manager. A 62-year-old engineer, Bordi took Ducati to success during the years when that company was owned by the Castiglionis and continued to manage it successfully under the ownership of Texas Pacific Group. Since 2003 Massimo Bordi has been the CEO of Same Deutz Fahr, contributing largely to the success of the company. Massimo Bordi commented that “MV Agusta has full capacity to once again become a major player in the high luxury brand motor bikes, this brand is one of the most recognized worldwide. We will implement a number of reorganization and managerial actions in the near future.

So, essentially, Castiglioni pawned off MV on Harley, so they could dump money into it for a few years, then bought it back as a stronger company for less than he sold it. Why H-D bought it in the first place is still an unanswered question.

Oh, and how hard did Castiglioni screw H-D?  Pretty hard.

Harley-Davidson bought MV Agusta for $109 million back in 2008 (most of which was bad debt), and now just a little over two years later is making a tidy profit of…well, nothing. After wiping the books clean, investing in new infrastructre, and getting MV Agusta back on track with an all new model line-up (with a bike on the way), Harley-Davidson saw a paltry sum of €1 cross its desks.

€1 is about $1.25.

So, Harley paid for the privilege of getting MV back on its feet, paying off the debt, bankrolling a new product line, then essentially gave it back to Castiglioni.  Who is, after all, the guy who was running MV into the ground before Harley-Davidson rescued it.

So, now we’ll get to find out if Castiglioni will run it into the ground again.

MCN’s Michael Neeves has gotten his hands on the all-new MV AGusta F4, and his ride impressions are posted at Motorcycle USA.  He really likes it.  Really.

F4s were always lightning-fast, but never that friendly to actually ride and live with, but the new F4 is different – it’s the best superbike MV has ever made.

Taking the F4 for a spin on the heavenly roads surrounding Almeria race circuit in southern Spain to start our test day, it’s a pleasant surprise to feel how easy it is to get on with. Gone is the harsh throttle, rough ride and a seat that trapped you resolutely between the tank and tail unit of the old bike. In its place is a seat you can move around in, spaciously-set clip-ons, a flawless throttle response, smooth gearbox, light controls and tactile brakes…

The Italian firm has smoothed out all the old F4’s rough edges and created a thoroughly usable superbike for the road. Relatively, it’s still not as soft or cuddly as a Japanese 1000 and probably not as easy to get on and ride, but it has considerably sharper teeth and is a thousand times more exclusive and handsome.

The F4 was always wicked fast, but it was a difficult beast in just about every other area.  But, now, it looks like MV Agusta may have finally found the F4’s stride.

The new bikes are now being officially unveiled at the EICMA show in Milan, and it’s a nice crop so far.  Ducati and MV Agusta have made the big splashes today, with MV showing off the 2010 F4, and Ducati releasing the long-awaited Multistrada, as well as the Hypermotard 1100 EVO.

Click on any of the pics below to enlarge.

Let’s start with the 2010 MV Agusta F4.  MV Agusta  says that they’ve updated the Tamburini design to a more modern look.  If by modern, you mean “acutely angled and sort of ugly”, well, I guess they did.  There’s lots of improvements under the fairing though, getting an additional 3 HP out of a 3cc smaller 998cc engine, and shedding 22lbs of dead weight.  It also comes with a 8-level traction control system, a new chassis, swingarm, and 4-1 exhaust system.

The 2010 Ducati Multistrada has a new 150HP engine pushing 417lbs down the road.  The new powerplant is called the Testastretta 11° engine, and comes with a nice slipper clutch, because while a slipper clutch might not be a usual requirement for an on-road enduro bike, it should be for a Ducati.

There will be three variants of the Multistrada:

• The 1200 base model with ABS brakes,
• The 1200S with the new Ducati Electronic Suspension (DES) system and Öhlins suspension components,
• And, the 1200S Touring with all the above and hard bags.

“Hypermotard” always seems like some sort of non-PC epithet you’d call a developmentally disabled dirt-biker,  But the Europeans seem to disagree, so we’ll use their unflattering word for the Ducati Hypermotard 1100 EVO. It’s got 95HP and weighs 379lbs, which is 15.5 less than last year.  There’s also an EVO SP model. It’s got an upgraded suspension, with an Öhlins setup in back and Marzocchi forks up front.

Finally, Ducati released a poor man’s 848, called the 848 Dark.  It should retail for about $1,000 less than the base model of the 848.  Nobody seems sure yet how they’ve downgraded it from the “base” model.  But if you want a cheap, black Ducati 848, here you go.

The EICMA show must getting really close (10 November, 2009, actually), because everybody is giving tantalizing little glimpses of their 2010 motorcycles before heading out to Milan.

Today it’s MV Agusta, with their new F4 sporting its saucy little derriere for the camera.

The first thing that hits me is the angularity of the design.  It looks like they’ve sharpened the curves of the classic Tambourini design.  The same elements are there, lik the flared top of the gas tank, but you can see that the curves have been noticeably narrowed.  Even the tail pipes have been squared off.

It has LED taillights and blinkers.

Oh, yeah, and it’ll come in at least the classic red and silver color scheme at the very least.

And…that’s about all we can see.  It’s not all we know, however, thanks to a press release from MV Agusta describing the new bike, which says, in part:

The engine has been revolutionized: the ultra compact in-line 4-cylinder 998cc engine is capable of reaching 186 hp at 12900 rpm. The highest level of engineering technology have been coupled with the most advanced electronic controls including: twin fuel injectors per cylinder, variable length intake system, slipper clutch and the TC MK II traction control system which has 8 levels of adjustment.

These advancements along with the uniqueness of the radial valve system attribute to the fact that this engine is the most sophisticated and evolved on the market.

The chassis has also been engineered to unheard of levels of compactness, the new single sided rear swingarm has been lengthened while at the same time its weight has been reduced along with the fully adjustable suspension which are all factors that contribute to making the new F4 unique.

The bike that originally revolutionized the world of supersport motorcycles has become even more beautiful, sleeker and modern while maintaining the unmistakable design “Made in MV”. The new xenon headlight and the new super light fairing are factors that contribute to the incredibly narrow cross-sectional area and the new pipe organ exhaust system with a restyled 4-in-1 silencer are all distinctive elements identifying F4 as the most exclusive motorcycle in the world.

It sure sounds neat.  But I’m curious to see what the first post-Tambourini F4 actually looks like.

The big motorcycle show, Italy’s EICMA, will be happening in 20 days. Traditionally, this is a show that always brings some surprises for the new year.  So, what’s up this year?

Obviously, Aprilia will be rolling out the RSV4 and RSV4-R.  That’s a no-brainer.

BMW might be an interesting presence this year.  The rumors of what is going to happen with the R-Series bikes has been rampant, with everything from a new 1300cc boxer, to the 1200cc boxer getting an update with the 130HP DOHC motor ported from the HP2.  I’ve written about the GS getting that motor, but there are rumors that the whole R-series will be getting that upgrade as well, which would make both the GS and RT extremely attractive.  And with 130HP, the lighter-weight RT would approach the performance of the FJR, making it a true sport-tourer.  The 1300cc K bikes and the S1000RR are old news already, so the only conceivable surprise would come from a revamping of the R Bikes.

Ducati’s new 1200cc Multistrada and Hypermotard 796 will be there.  We’ve already seen the Hypermotard.  And we’ve seen the new Multistrada, too, except with lots of duct tape hiding the fairing.  The removal of the duct tape will be Ducati’s big event.

MV Agusta has had the same model lineup of two bikes–the F4 and Brutale–for the last decade.  This year looks to be a little different, however.  We’ve already seen the two new Brutale models, so, while they’ll no doubt be there, no one will care.  What we haven’t seen is the revamped F4, other than the teaser image MV released several days ago, So I expect that to be unveiled.  But what we really haven’t seen are the two entirely new models that have been rumored over the last month or so.  The 675cc triple that has shown up is spy shots, and the company’s new Superbike, which is expected to lead MV Agusta back to participation in WSS or WSBK racing.  We don’t even know if it’s a completely new model, or WSBK-compliant F4 model.  But, after a decade with the same old line-up, MV might be the surprise of the show this year.

Neither Honda now Yamaha will be there, which, in Honda’s case seems a bit odd, since their new VFR1200F has just debuted, and it’s supposed to be the basis for a whole new line of motorcycles from Big Red.  So, it seems strange that they won’t be at EICMA so show it off.

Triumph will be there, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the new Street Triple R show up, with its new black and gold paint scheme, reminiscent of the John Player Special motorsports paint scheme of beloved memory.

But, surprises aside, with thingsas bad in the motorcycle manufacturing and sales world as they are, it seems that this year will mostly be a low-key affair, which the absence of two of the Big Four won’t help.

BTW, I wonder if Harley-Davidson will be pulling the Buell 1125R from the show?

I wish I could say I was surprised this morning to finally see the news made public that Harley-Davidson was going to sell MV Agusta, and shut down Buell’s operations.  But, I wasn’t.

Let’s address the MV Agusta deal first.  I never really understood exactly what the MoCo thought it was getting when it purchased MV and Cagiva.  Turns out I’m not alone in that, since apparently nobody at Harley-Davidson did either.  Cagiva was a financial basket case, and MV–though it had a glorious racing past and venerable reputation–had been reduced to a boutique maker of a small number of motorcycles.

And once HD had finished crowing about buying it, they proceeded to do…nothing.  No press releases.  No earth-shattering changes.  They just let it sort of sit there.  They owned it, but once they did, they didn’t seem to know what to do with it.  So now, they’re selling it at what is probably going to be a deeper discount than they purchased it for, so it seems like it was just a multi-million-dollar bath for Milwaukee.

Oh, well, it’ll make a nice write-off against tax, I’m sure.

As for Buell, I’ve already gotten into some detail in the post linked above as to why the MoCo had completely bungled the management of Buell.

A brief tour of BadWeb, the Buell biker forum, today shows that the Buellers are no more receptive to hearing bad news about the company–nor any more prone to think about it realistically–than they were last month when I wrote that my sources indicated to me that Buell was probably going to be shut down.

It’s full of fantasies about some sort of demonstration to make HD reverse its decision.  There also seem to be a number of analysts who write that this is an insane decision for the MoCo, because losing Buell will destroy Harley.

That’s just fantasy.  Quite apart from the fact that Harley is doing a fine job of destroying itself by confining itself to an aging customer base, the fact is that Harley killed Buell a long time ago through their mismanagement of the brand.  Killing Buell is a symptom of HD’s problem, not the cause of it.

The company says they are doing this to concentrate on their brand, by which I assume they mean continuing to market even more aggresively to their shrinking, aging customer base.  As one industry wag put it to to me today, “How many more 52 year-olds looking for their first bike can they find?”

As far as Buell contributing much to harley financially, well, that’s just absurd.

In 2008, HD’s annual report states that they sold $313.8m in general merch, making up 5.6% of corporate revenues. Buell Motorcycles, on the other hand, made $123.2m in revenues, or 2.2% of corporate revenues. According to the company 10k statement for 2008, Buell accounted for 4,000 of HD’s 222,200 motorcycle registrations. Of the 686 HD dealerships in 2008, more than half of them don’t even sell Buells.

In other words, Buell accounted for 0.2% of HD motorcycle sales, and the MoCo made twice as much money selling orange dog scarves and rhinestone belts for girls than from the sale of Buell motorcycles.

So, the idea that keeping Buell motorcycles will make up for…well…anything at Harley Davidson is so at variance with the actual facts as to qualify as sheer fantasy. Let’s not pretend that Buell has either the user base or financial performance to rank as a serious part of Harley Davidson.

I guess it does show, though, that some people personalize their motorcycle brand very deeply.

I guess my take-away for those people is that sometimes, when people write negative things about your favorite motorcycle brand, it’s not because they hate it.  Sometimes, they write it because it’s true.

Just something to think about.

It won’t be officially unveiled until November, but MV Agusta has released a sneak peak photo of the 2010 F4.  It’s not much of a photo, and it doesn’t show much except the headlight, and the general shape of the fairing, front-on.

It looks a bit different, but it still has the essential Tamburini styling.  What is more important than the fairing is what’s under it.  An what’s under it may be nice.  We’ve already seen the 2010 Brutale, and that bike is essentially the naked version of the F4.  Since already know that the 2010 Brutale 1090R is pretty much brand new, with 85% new components, we can probably assume that the F4 is similarly new.

Still no word on anything like a specification for the new F4, of course.

I guess we’ll still have to wait ’til November for that.

There was a time when MV Agusta was one of the world’s premier motorcycle brands.  Not only did they make fantastic and beautiful motorcycles for street use, but Agusta was also a potent force–and for a time, perhaps the potent force– in motorsports all across the world.  Sadly, in recent years, Agusta has suffered a steep decline from those glory days.  Not only has MV Agusta essentially disappeared from the racing world, the company has essentially produced only two models for the past decade: the F4 sportbike, and the Brutale naked streetfighter.

This appears to be changing.

Earlier this month, the first spy pictures of a brand newMV Agusta 675cc triple sportbike appeared on the UK motorcycle web site Visordown.  Now, Visordown is reporting that they will be revealing a new MV Agusta superbike model in the next few weeks.  This bike will not be an F4 model, but a completely new Superbike-class machine, that is also expected to lead MV Agusta back to participation in WSS or WSBK racing.  Other than that, no one seems to have any idea about what this new superbike model will be.  We don’t even know if it will be a new model that slots in above the F4 in Agusta’s line-up, or if it replaces the F4 as an entirely new model.  All we know is that it’s on the way.

I’m not exactly sure what value MV Agusta brought to Harley-Davidson when the MoCo purchased agusta several months ago.  But it appears that Harley brought MV Agusta the opportunity to expand their decade-old line-up.

The new, redesigned, 2010 Brutale models have been announced by MV Agusta.  And by redesigned, I mean redesigned.  According to MV 85% of the components in the two models are new, including the frame, swingarm, and engines. The suspension has also been redesigned.

The US retail price for the 99R will be $15,000, and the 1090R wil be $18,000.

On my way home from work today, I had to make a few stops to pick up some things.  One of those stops took me right past the Moto Forza Italian bike dealership, so, without anything better to do, I went in just to look around a bit.

They had your Ducatis, your Benellis, etc.  They also had this bike.  The very one you see pictured here.

It’s a 2007 MV Agusta F4 1000R.  Unused.  It has 9 miles on the clock.  174 HP.  82 lb-ft of torque.  Sticker price…$14,999.

I told the guy I’d probably be getting an isurance settlement check in another month or so.  He just laughed in my face, and said, “Oh, it’ll be long gone by then.”  Thanks for the ray of hope, Ass.

So, how did they come by a new 2007 F4?  Well, according to Moto Forza’s web site:

MV USA came up with a handful of new bikes that had somehow slipped through the cracks. Some were display bikes for trade shows, some bikes were used for promotional photographs, etc. This 2007 F4 1000R up for sale is one of these few bikes.

Some sorry SOB is gonna walk into Moto Forza in the next week or so and buy it.  I hate him.

I just keep telling myself, “It’s got a archaic chain drive.  This is 2009.  What am I supposed to do, spend my Saturdays lubricating a chain like an animal? Who needs it?”

Riiiight.

Harley-Davidson, whatever the company’s faults may be, have gotten one thing consistently right: Marketing.  They are a marketing powerhouse.  When you buy a Harley-Davidson, you don’t just buy a motorcycle.  You buy a ticket to the “Harley Lifestyle”.  The company’s marketing is ubiquitous and effective.  But not perfect…

H-D’s CEO, Keith Wandell, admitted in an interview with The Business Journal that the company flubbed their forecasts of the recession’s impact on their customers’ buying choices.

[T]he company mistakenly thought the recession would push consumers toward Harley’s Sportster and other less expensive motorcycles.

The company increased production of those types of bikes, but retail sales “didn’t materialize,” he said.

Harley dealers currently have a glut of the mid-priced V-Rod models.

Instead, many consumers who have been buying Harley-Davidson motorcycles have been buying more expensive custom and touring bikes, Wandell said.

“It left us with a bigger imbalance,” he said. “We have a lot of inventory.”

As a result, Harley-Davidson will shut down final assembly operations of the Sportster and V-Rod motorcycles and V-Rod motorcycle powertrain production in Kansas City, and production of Sportster motorcycle powertrains in Wauwatosa, for 14 weeks this year, including all of the fourth quarter.

Let me put on my MBA hat here.  (And yes, I do have one.  An MBA, I mean.  I don’t actually have the hat.  But, I’m thinking of getting one made.)

Harley’s real problem, however, is not the occasional tactical marketing error, but a more fundamental strategic error that the company keeps compounding.I’m kind of stunned that the MoCo would make such a mistake about the buying habits of their customers.  Sportsters certainly have their fans, but general, people buy a Sportster because they want a Sportster. I can see how someone wanting a Softtail might settle for a Dyna, but not a Sportie.  At least with the Dyna they still get the Big Twin engine.  Surely the company must know that the Sportster is called the “baby Harley” and “girls bike”.  They must have some inkling that salesmen at dealerships constantly advise prospective Sportster buyers that they’ll quickly outgrow the bike, and want a Dyna in a year or so, so why not buy a Dyna that you won’t outgrow instead?

People who want a Big Twin–and often they already have a Metric big twin they’re looking to trade off–aren’t interested in scaling down to a smaller motorcycle.  They want one of the big dogs.

And as for the V-Rod…well, I don’t know what they were thinking when they thought they’d see an increase in sales there.  It’s a nice bike but it certainly isn’t the company’s most popular product line.  Not by a long shot.

It’s strange to see the company make such an unusual tactical error, and now the employees are gonna pay for it, as the MoCo cuts production to align inventory with customer demand.

Harley’s real problem, however, is not the occasional tactical marketing error, but a more fundamental strategic error that the company keeps compounding.

The brand is an absolute icon for the baby boomers.  Among the Gen-X set and younger riders…well, not so much.  The MoCo has a serious strategic problem when it comes to marketing, in that younger riders just aren’t attracted by the Harley brand.  Harley obviously knows that their customers are aging, as evidenced by the fact that they’ve started producing factory trikes, so that their customers can keep riding long after the ability to hold up a 750 lb. hunk of steel fades away.

But Harley’s challenge isn’t to figure out how to keep an aging band of retirees buying their products, but rather how to entice younger riders to the brand.  It’s clear that, looking at the advancing average age of H-D customers, they haven’t figured it out.  Or rather, if they have, they’ve declined to implement the obvious solution.

To properly understand the problem, we need to look back at a bit of history.

If you were born in, say, 1980, Harley-Davidson has never been the Big Dog motorcycle.I was born in 1964, so that makes me the very last of the baby boomers.  When we were growing up a “superbike”–the term didn’t really exist back then–was a Norton Commando 800.  A Harley-Davidson was a massive motorcycle with an ungodly large 1200cc engine.  You started riding motorcycles with a Montgomery-Wards 125cc thumper, maybe graduated to a BSA 500cc, then you finally got the money to get one of the Big Dogs, a Harley.

In the 70s, that all started to change.  The Japanese began producing game-changing bikes like the Honda 750Four, and the Kawasaki Z-1.  Performance increased dramatically.  By 1984, when Yamaha introduced the frighteningly powerful (for the time) V-Max, real superbikes were available. The mid-80s explosion of Sportbikes, like the Kawasaki Ninja, raised the bar forever in terms of new motorcycle riders’ perceptions about what a powerful motorcycle was.

Harley’s response was, and continues to be, incremental increases in engine displacement from 1200cc air cooled twins to 1600cc air-cooled twins, along with incremental improvements to frames, suspension, and, thus handling.  But the styling and riding characteristics of the company’s products remained mainly stuck in the 1950s-1960s.

Don’t believe me?  OK.  Compare and contrast the two bikes shown here.

Can you think of any other product where so little styling has changed in the past 44 years?

So, if you were born in, say, 1980, Harley-Davidson has never been the Big Dog motorcycle.  It’s been a manufacturer of heavy, slow, low-performance cruisers.  You’ve grown up in a world of 150+HP superbikes–a world that did not exist when the boomers were young.  Younger riders have an entirely different mental impression of how the motorcycling world is put together.

To thrive as a company Harley needs a product that is connected to the modern era, as well as the past.  That doesn’t mean that Harley should jettison its classic styling completely.  There’ll always be a market for that, because it has a definite appeal to some riders.  But to grab younger riders Harley-Davidson–as a company, not a specific brand–has to have something else.  It has to have a line of motorcycles that appeals to those younger people who want more sport than cruiser.

And, interestingly enough, Harley already has that with Buell motorcycles.  And does almost nothing with them.

First, until last year, the entire Buell line–except for the now-defunct Blast–was limited to cast-off Sportster Evolution engines.  Erik Buell’s division tweaked them as well as they could be tweaked, but the XB series of bikes has never–and can never, from a technical point of view–compete with 600cc sportbikes like the Yamaha R6.  And I simply can’t believe that an old privateer racer like Erik Buell is satisfied with the performance of the products he’s been allowed to put out by his masters in Milwaukee.

And, to make matters worse, Buell doesn’t even have its own dealership network.  Instead, Buells are relegated to the dark corner of Harley-Davidson dealerships, and the sales staffs often know little about the brand…and care even less.  I’ve personally had sales people intentionally steer me away from Buells, to point me in the direction of a Softtail or Road King.

H-D needs to move beyond the cruiser world if it wants to compete in the future. And that means letting Buell have some more leeway to operate beyond the Harley-Davidson cruiser world.

Companies survive by making products the public wishes to purchase.  They don’t survive on tradition.  They don’t survive on selling lifestyles.They need to break into the younger markets by producing bikes that can compete with the Gixxers and Ninjas. That means giving Buell the go-ahead to dump the Thunderstorm engine in favor of water-cooled twins and V-4 or I-4 engines.  Buell has some fascinating design ideas for sportbikes, but one of the reasons they’ve never been accepted is that, performance-wise, Buells suck compared to the Japanese brands. Buell needs a powerplant to mate with their technical innovations.  The 1125 is a good start.  Now, they need to make the next step.

They need to liberate Buell from the H-D dealership network, and open up dealerships where Buell enthusiasts work.  It doesn’t matter how good the bikes are if their sales network doesn’t want to sell them.  Making the customers force the dealer to sell them a Buell is silly, and it needs to stop.

Harley also has MV Agusta, the venerable maker of Italian sportbikes, including the F4 312RR, the most powerful production motorcycle in the world, as well as its parent company, Cagiva.  Maybe figuring out how to get those Italian brands over here would be helpful as well.

Companies survive by making products the public wishes to purchase.  They don’t survive on tradition.  They don’t survive on selling lifestyles.  The reason the MoCo’s customer base is aging and shrinking is because they aren’t making products the younger generation wants to buy.

But Harley owns the brands, and has the capability to make the bikes that will attract the younger generation of buyers.  It only remains to be seen if Harley will continue to rest on the laurels of the brand’s prestige, or if it will become determined to compete in the new markets that the Japanese currently own.