Harley Davidson winds up Buell!

[Headbanger]

Disaster is it's not continuing.

..........That was a big part of what I was referring to.

if they had sold more bikes, They wouldn't have been showing as a loss making division on the spreadsheets and the brand wouldn't have been culled when the economy took a dive and the parent company had to find ways to tighten their belts.

[Headbanger]

What's the wage bill on 200 employees?

At an average of 40k a year, 8 fucking million dollars.

Not that I have any idea what the average factory work gets paid.

[Mystic13]

They may have 200 employees now but that may not be what they had or needed.

Typically when a corporate takes over a smaller enterprise they make the assumption that they're smarter and have a growth plan. There is a sudden influx of management, sales people and others. This is usually seen as necessary to grow the business and puts it in a loss making situation to start with.

It'd be interesting to see the annual stats in sales volumes. Seems it's fair to say they hadn't met projections and in these times some businesses go about chopping any points that are losing money.

The interesting question for me is why didn't they sell it. I'm assuming they did a ring around and got no response and this announcement will flush out any parties wishing to have a go.

I would have thought EB would have looked at this.

So are HD interested in selling or not and if not why not? It can't be to resurrect the brand after stabbing it to death.

Seems the two choices are no buyer or they intend to use everything they acquired and don't want to compete with it.

If they bought it for the IP solely they wouldn't have left the brand running for so long.

I can imagine a power struggle within HD between "the die hard HD is everything and the only thing" exec and those wanting to branch out.

The question is will Buell be bought or is it gone for good.


Whatever the outcome you have to take your hat off to EB for being around this long and achieving what he has.

[Big Dave]

.

The interesting question for me is why didn't they sell it.

The IP.

[rogson]

The IP.

Yep, they want to eventually get into that market space under the HD badge - has a lot more brand value than Buell.

Is the XR1200 the first/crossover bike?

[Headbanger]

I can imagine a power struggle within HD between "the die hard HD is everything and the only thing" exec and those wanting to branch out.

Obviously there are enough people in the higher end of management who have acknowledged that the traditional air-cooled V-Twin is a dead end and at some stage will get legislated off the road due to controls in the EU and California.

The V-Rod and the Buell are both in response to this, H-D are trying to get a new (modern) design of bike/motor to be accepted as H-D and no one is buying into it.

Im always surprised by the hostility shown towards V-Rods, Sporters and Buells as being not real H-D (on American HD sites).

It as wanktastic as the stupid biased shit demonstrated around here, Perhaps worse.

[HenryDorsetCase]

The IP.

On some (mainly US based) sites a lot of people are drawing comparisons between the AMF days and the present decision: and also the dark days of the brit-bike industry: basically blaming the (non-enthusiast) chairman.

Which shows a basic lack of understanding of business in my view. I cant remember the figures exactly but HD revenues have been HAMMERED though it did apparently make a small profit in the third quarter. the CEO said "I will cut off a limb to save a life" and he, apparently, has done so.

And people (including me) have been banging on about Harley's problem, of its aging core user base, and being more a seller of T shirts and dog bandanas than motorbikes. The point is, that HD the company are as in touch with their user base as much as, and arguably more so, than almost any other (perhaps Ducati excepted).

I eremember reading somewhere that in the states if you had an HD, you likely had at least one other bike: and the most common "other bike" was a Ducati: which makes sense to me. So Buell was kind of positioned to be the "other bike". and then (among other things) the arse fell out of the economy.

One of those RR1000 Twins sold for really good money on ebay last year. wonder what its worth now?

[Big Dave]

The V-Rod and the Buell are both in response to this, H-D are trying to get a new (modern) design of bike/motor to be accepted as H-D and no one is buying into it.

There are quite a lot of V-rods on the road up here. Muscles is a pretty nice bike too.

The problem is that eventually air coooled engines won't meet their EPA standard.

[HenryDorsetCase]

Yep, they want to eventually get into that market space under the HD badge - has a lot more brand value than Buell.

Is the XR1200 the first/crossover bike?

the new one with the piggyback shocks and black on black colour scheme gives me the horn. Just saying.

[Big Dave]

the new one with the piggyback shocks and black on black colour scheme gives me the horn. Just saying.

At the launch I rode it along all the twisty bits of the great ocean road - and was off the lead group's pace.

Tuned the suspension next morning for 'big' and I cleared out (behind the factory pro) through the Ottway range.

Goes almost as well as a Buell.

Which raises the point again as to why - and why H-D bought the Buell Motor Co in the first place. Job done?

[HenryDorsetCase]

At the launch I rode it along all the twisty bits of the great ocean road - and was off the lead group's pace.

Tuned the suspension next morning for 'big' and I cleared out (behind the factory pro) through the Ottway range.

Goes almost as well as a Buell.

Which raises the point again as to why - and why H-D bought the Buell Motor Co in the first place. Job done?

Well the implication there is that HD never had an intention of carrying it on, and no matter what you think of them, I dont think that the business case holds up: if their intention was to absorb it in toto, surely the time to do that was when they bought out all of Erik's stock (say 5 years ago?).

The Buell print ads (this months Performance Bikes, and Cycle World) are quite ironic reading now.

[Pixie]

One mans shitter is another mans cruiser....

He might not WANT race-type brakes, MX ride-hight or trial-bike cornering.

So he buys a jap cruiser - doesn't need a trailer to move it from cafe to cafe

[Big Dave]

The Buell print ads (this months Performance Bikes, and Cycle World) are quite ironic reading now.

[scumdog]

So he buys a jap cruiser - doesn't need a trailer to move it from cafe to cafe

Oh yeah, I forgot, Harleys only ever move if on a trailer - how come the copy-cat 'metric'cruisers' didn't copy that fine feature too?

[nallac]

Oh yeah, I forgot, Harleys only ever move if on a trailer - how come the copy-cat 'metric'cruisers' didn't copy that fine
feature too?

Umm?,
Cause jap cruisers aren't held in the same requard (by some people)
as harleys so actually use em an get em dirty?.

Cause the japs can't enginer built in break downs?

Cause chromed plastic is easier to clean than chromed steel?.

Cause plastic doesn't rust?.