03-01-2021, 04:59 PM
Every market will have its foibles. From here the USA appears completely power mad, cars are huge, engines are huge, petrol compared to the price here is dirt cheap, it’s roughly £5.50 a gallon here which I think is something like $7.60 US. I know I know it cannot be true of everyone but it’s so easy to find YouTube vids of let’s call them ‘Busa boys’ doing ‘smack downs’. 190 mph street races against heavily modded H2’s, ZX14R’s and BMW1000R’s in T shirts and flip flops. No gloves of course. Splitting lanes, wheelies, stunts, crashing sometimes. I don’t understand how they get away with it? At the other extreme every Harley seems to have to leave the dealership modded out with the biggest engines known to man or it’s rubbish. Like they aren’t big enough anyway?It’s alien to me.
So maybe, in Japan, at their HQ and Worldwide marketing dept they reach a similar conclusion and think well, shame but it’s the wrong market for the CB, so pull the plug.
The retro/ heritage thing is fickle. Let’s take the Suzuki Katana make over released a couple of years ago. Clearly looks wise based on the 1980’s air cooled model but now with a water cooled 145 bhp engine and egg cup sized petrol tank. I have not ridden one but saw one in a showroom. Very very quick bike. Can’t give them away. Another one the Z900RS Cafe. I like how it looks a lot but I don’t think that did well, (the unfaired one did) dealers were still trying to get rid of 0 mile 2018 bikes last Christmas at massive discounts. I even for a brief time wondered if I could scrape enough together to bag one. When Ferret highlights the overall production run of 10 years, despite everything, it’s pretty impressive really.
So maybe, in Japan, at their HQ and Worldwide marketing dept they reach a similar conclusion and think well, shame but it’s the wrong market for the CB, so pull the plug.
The retro/ heritage thing is fickle. Let’s take the Suzuki Katana make over released a couple of years ago. Clearly looks wise based on the 1980’s air cooled model but now with a water cooled 145 bhp engine and egg cup sized petrol tank. I have not ridden one but saw one in a showroom. Very very quick bike. Can’t give them away. Another one the Z900RS Cafe. I like how it looks a lot but I don’t think that did well, (the unfaired one did) dealers were still trying to get rid of 0 mile 2018 bikes last Christmas at massive discounts. I even for a brief time wondered if I could scrape enough together to bag one. When Ferret highlights the overall production run of 10 years, despite everything, it’s pretty impressive really.