04-18-2015, 01:14 AM
(04-18-2015, 12:35 AM)sig_a_imp Wrote:(04-17-2015, 08:01 PM)lemontree_imp Wrote: FYI BMW has announced the Scrambler
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-b...is-coming/
Honda and BMW both detune air cooled motors as a way to keep in compliance, which is one reason the CB1100 engine is only 9.5:1 compression @ 85 BHP.
Honda will continue to make the CB1100 model so long as it's profitable. Many dealers don't know how to sell them.
Air-cooled engines remain on current model of HD's, H's K's, Y's, S's, and will not die off any faster than water-cooled.
The genuine challenge to all motorcycle manufacturers of internal combustion engines remains electricity.
For example, http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/
Despite BMW not scoring very well in the recent Consumers Report article, unit sales are up about 16% YOY.
BMW is becoming an image brand (more than it already had been) and rich-man's goods.
It's dangerous to step into politics on such a board as this one, but politics touches us on many levels. For whatever reason, the income of Yuppie-Bankers has just TAKEN OFF. They suddenly have more money than they'd ever dreamed of; and so all the toys that a thirty-something paper-pusher might want - BMW motorcycles; BMW cars; Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Aspen ski lodges, racing boats...those are all selling well.
Honda is not seeing that. Honda does not have, never tried to have, the cachet that H-D and BMW now have. Honda is quality but Honda has always let its quality speak for itself. BMW has cultivated ITS image, quietly, of Germanic engineering and quality...some of which was deserved, some of which no longer is. And we know what H-D sells.
I don't think Honda's corporate aiming was flawed; but they seem to be in the right-place/wrong-time mode.