Glad I kept the picture

[Laava]

Gotta be good for a caption comp surely!
The all new "Tom Cruise edition" bike goes into production!

[Swoop]

Huh?

No saddlebags?

[one fast tl1ooo]

[Big Dave]

Huh?

No saddlebags?

Well there ya go - someone missed it - Not responsible BTW - the pic arrived on email when they first bought MV.

[avgas]

Shut down Buell for 100+mil

Nah Eric did this on his own accord.
I am yet to see another bike company take their 3rd biggest selling bike, not just stop producing it - but public crush it saying it was a horrible bike, slamming all the owners....leaving both the crushed bike and half of the market in the desert.

Imagine if Honda did this with the goldwing......or kawasaki with the er6.........how the Buell investors let this happen to the blast is insane.

[Big Dave]

Nah Eric did this on his own accord.
I am yet to see another bike company take their 3rd biggest selling bike, not just stop producing it - but public crush it saying it was a horrible bike, slamming all the owners....leaving both the crushed bike and half of the market in the desert.

Imagine if Honda did this with the goldwing......or kawasaki with the er6.........how the Buell investors let this happen to the blast is insane.

Erik was unaware of the closure till just before it was announced publicly. Came as a complete shock. Up until that time he was working on the assumption of a new factory that had just received council approval.

Buell only accounted for 3% of Harley's sales at best. They had better market share here because they suit the conditions so well. US owners get a chubby when they see another one they are so rare in some parts.

The company was 100% owned by Harley-Davidson since 1995 when EB sold them the last of his shares. There were no Buell investors other than H-D at the time.

The independent marketing company that devised the 'Book of Buell' and the blast stunt, that whole campaign, has never been called to account, as far as I've seen, for what must be amongst the greatest industry cock-ups of all time.

[doc]

Nah Eric did this on his own accord.
.........how the Buell investors let this happen to the blast is insane.

Those Buell things were just "Mutton dressed as Lamb"

[nallac]

Those Buell things were just "Mutton dressed as Lamb"

So what does that make a sporty then?....Pork dressed as ..........Mutton?.

[avgas]

So what does that make a sporty then?....Pork dressed as ..........Mutton?.

Pork dressed as spam

[nallac]

Pork dressed as spam

Or spam dressed as...well,spam?.

[avgas]

The independent marketing company that devised the 'Book of Buell' and the blast stunt, that whole campaign, has never been called to account, as far as I've seen, for what must be amongst the greatest industry cock-ups of all time.

Good to know.......but I do recall that Eric pushed the button on the bike crusher - so he can't wash his hands of it entirely.
Rumor I heard was it was his idea of Viral to boost sales to the 1125CR before he released it.
Certainly got lots of attention. Friend of mine in the US actually had to ask the sales guy if they were going to keep producing the XBS or if that was on the chopping block.
Dumb thing was - there were companies in the market who were trying to buy the blast. Mac Motorcycles had put an offer of exclusive rights.....and were even trying to get cash to buy the lot involved with the blast.
Now Mac's cant even get the left overs off Harley.....

Seriously fucked up.....

[Big Dave]

so he can't wash his hands of it entirely.

The guys ideal is to produce competitive race bikes - he's a racer.

I wouldn't be surprised if he entirely agreed with it.

What is surprising is that the amount of 'focus groups' and market research that the six figure campaign would have bought didn't set off alarm bells - or whether they just chose to ignore them and took the 'no such thing as bad advertising' route.

Still a right royal cock up, as far as I can see, Arthur.

[R-Soul]

You have to hand it Claudio Castigligoni. He sold MV to HD with 90 mil debt and buys it back without the debt for 1 euro.

Indeed, Harley did exactly that - "hand it" to Claudio

[R-Soul]

Good to know.......but I do recall that Eric pushed the button on the bike crusher - so he can't wash his hands of it entirely.
Rumor I heard was it was his idea of Viral to boost sales to the 1125CR before he released it.
Certainly got lots of attention. Friend of mine in the US actually had to ask the sales guy if they were going to keep producing the XBS or if that was on the chopping block.
Dumb thing was - there were companies in the market who were trying to buy the blast. Mac Motorcycles had put an offer of exclusive rights.....and were even trying to get cash to buy the lot involved with the blast.
Now Mac's cant even get the left overs off Harley.....

Seriously fucked up.....

Well HD's main marketing line has always been "buy american". Prolly cause tehy cant say "buy speed" or "buy reliability" or "buy power", but hey..

If they sell the only other big american bike name to a competitor who could end up producing better bikes than them, they will even lose that payoff line...

[Big Dave]

Faskinatin' Footnote from the Wall St Journal

A footnote: There is a certain element of should-have-known-better in this story. This isn’t the first time Harley-Davidson has had a hard time with an Italian acquisition. In the 1960s it bought a stake in Aermacchi, a maker of small off-road bikes as a way to expand into new markets. Eventually it bought the whole company, but that move also eventually failed and Harley sold Aermacchi in the late 1970s. The sellers and buyers: the Castiglioni brothers.

Article here
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/20...ort-bike-unit/