12-10-2019, 04:08 AM
(12-09-2019, 08:15 AM)The ferret_imp Wrote: Chip, the hill (mountain)I see for Harley Davidson is ignoring other aspects of the market to concentrate on their "core" customers ie old guys on cruisers for so many years. There has been a generation or two asking Harley to build something other than a cruiser..an ADV, a Sport tourer, a standard. More hp, less weight, better handling more amenities and better ergos only to be told by Harley they are just not going to do it, has alienated at least 2 generations of riders. Now they are trying with the Pan Am and the Bronx. Too little too late? Only time will tell. Yes Harley made a comeback once. Can they do it again? It' going to be a lot tougher than it was last time. Last time they only had to beat the Japanese at making a cruiser. And they had a market place that was "Pro American". Now they have to compete across the board as far as models go to a market that has decidedly changed to a world market. I'm afraid as they face quarterly decline after quarterly decline they will eventually be a shell of their former self. And with Indian producing new competing models that are arguably better than the originals, it does not bode well. Tough incline.
You, near my age, and about done buying bikes are decidedly pro Harley due to your upbringing. My son at 40 with quite a few bikes to buy in his career yet is decidedly not.
To me noise is noise whether it's an I-4 with a pipe or a V2 with a pipe. Personally, I wish it were totally illegal to mess with stock exhausts that meet a certain decibel level. Open pipes on any bike, to me, is just plain obnoxious.
Mick,
Unfortunately you nailed it here. As I consider my next street and dirt bikes I don't think of them as my "next" bikes. I think of them as my "last" bikes. Depressing but that's life. And my son, now 26, rides a Ducati 796. The bike in my garage he and his friends are drawn to is the Sportster 48 because it looks cool but it's not a good "only bike" (then again, either is that 796). As a General Motors dealer for decades I watched the demographic of Cadillac, Mercury, Oldsmobile, and Buick get so old that their core buyers would all be dead in 15 years. Cadillac is the only brand that was able to get cool and younger again with rappers and hip-hop artists driving them. The others gave it a weak try before dying.
GM would have gone bankrupt 20 years earlier without their strong customer and dealer base. That momentum kept them going long after they should have died. HD has that same advantage today giving them time to figure it out. I hope they do.
Chip