Quote:
Originally Posted by 72c20customcamper
I sold a pan to get a Kawasaki H2 triple. Changed out the rear socket wasn't great of the line but would 165 on a long straight like the William floyd parkway. Just sayin....
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Just sayin' what?
Sorry Mark, but the only thing you wrote that I can make out is you sold the Pan for a Kaw
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdav160
Motorcycle sales in the USA have been slumping for a decade
And HD's sales follow that trend.
However, HD is going the way of Sears if they do not change their ways. If some old guy at the factory doesn't like the new product........well.. he is part of the problem.
I ride BMW "R"'s. You know that 1920's engine technology....opposed twin - air cooled
BMW added a true sport bike in 1999, the R1100S. It didn't sell super well to the base but it brought in new customers. They kept with it so that BMW now sells some of the most high performance motorcycles made. The "R" engine is still with the line up but with liquid cooling. It's fan base didn't revolt. They embraced it.
Frankly, it appears a lot of HD's fan base are luddites |
I was not aware of this 10 year downturn in overall sales. But I never put much stock in statistics anyway. They focus on one aspect while overlooking all other pertinent information that would form the actual scenario. In this case, Harley's sales had been skyrocketing up to that beginning point in '91. So much that they could not supply the demand. You could buy a new Harley, ride it a year, and sell it for what you paid for it no problem. People were clamoring and squabbling over the ones that were available after being on "the list" from a year prior. People were buying one every year off the floor and flipping for profit. At that time, at that level of sales, the news everywhere you went was Harley was the great American success story at the time there was a huge vacuum effect of manufacturing being sucked away from America. I made good money on stocks. Every time I turned around shares were splitting and going right up to the value they were at the time of the split. My stocks sum quadrupled in less than two years. So now sales are down to only approx 97k more then back then, but still nearly 3x more than what they were when this was happening. Harley isn't going anywhere. You keep painting an unrealistic picture of Harley's state of being with false information. The old riders are dying off and the new ones are coming along just fine, obviously. BTW, speaking of the slant of statistics, where is you graph for BMW sales?
And Sears' failing was not because they failed to change with the times or any other fault of their own. They went with the internet sales, but they had stores for you and I to go grab what we needed, if we got off our lazy tails in our not as busy as people like to portray lives, the same day we decided we needed that item. Faster than Amazon.
I guess I really do love Harleys. I like BMW Rs, too. But the fact is the two groups of "most" riders and the bikes they ride are at opposite ends of the spectrum, friction is not uncommon, and I feel your comments are typical of a BMW owner whenever the topic of Harley comes up. BMWs aren't American. They are a success for Germany. They are not a part of the lost US manufacturing syndrome that Harley has managed to survive for a few decades at this point. I don't know so I'll ask, does BMW have an electric bike?
Not trying to be offensive and not personalizing when I tell you a quote I read that a Harley rider said to a BMW rider who was razzing him (I think about comfort) at the end of one day of The Iron Butt Rallye that I love to death. So Clint Eastwood. "Were you born an axxhole or did instructions come with your BMW?"