MCN

Harley-Davidson have produced, for 2010, an even grander version of its ElectraGlide full-dress tourer – and it’s on test in next week’s MCN! Dubbed the Electra Glide Ultra Limited – and if that name wasn’t some kind of ultimate itself,...

Click here for complete article

motowebmaster

Let's suit up!

Jamie

The ultimate 2-wheeled fat slob IMO.

Too dressy and thus way too ponderous for the decrepit and asthmatic engine to pull.

Jamie

Speedtrip

Funny seeing a Euro tester on a Hog, is that a full face helmet and gear from head to toe?

The Prophet

And only $35,999 in the USA! A mere pittance to a posing RUB.

2010 Harley Davidson CVO Ultra Classic Electra Glide Motorcycle - Picture of the 2010 Harley Davidson CVO Ultra Classic Electra Glide FLHTCUSE5

Or... I could buy a Road King for say $17,000.. AND a Ducati Monster for backroads fun as my "spare" bike for less than the $36K.

I bet they sell all of three of these land-barges!!! If you're gonna go this far, you'd be looking at a Goldwing or a BMW mega tourer.

Would it have been better to have retained Buell, attached the HD logo to it, and develop an extremely sporty, high-tech, high perfromance yet affordable modern sport bike to attract the younger, upcoming biking segment? Knowledge and input from the MV Agusta branch may have been helpful as well.

Instead, they go to India to sell at best maybe100 bikes, and develop a lumbering uber-barge to add to the slowly eroding boomer market.

Huh? Wha'?

I've been wrong many, many times, but this definitely reeks of massive, desperate failure. No wonder I keep hedging at buying that Road King Tourer; these guys may very well be out of business by 2011, or at best a subsidairy of some Korean investment company.
Har-ree Dabitson?

Ride Safe!

Bob

__________________

• A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu
• Motorcyles are not my whole life, but they make my life whole. ` me

Speedtrip

You wouldn't buy a Road King at our local dealer for $17k. Most of the bikes on the floor down here have about $8k worth of accessories added!

BTW I've got a chance to buy an old 750 Monster from a dealer that got left when the owner couldn't pay the repair bill. I'm real tempted but the boss will take some convincing that our garage needs another bike.

Jamie

Interesting.

MV Agusta had nothing of substance to offer, apart from a decade-old in line-4 engine that had already been milked to death in terms of displacement and peak power... AND creditors' (incl. local supliers) patience management. The price HD paid for it was ridiculously high, according to my former business associates there (11 years of my life spent in Italy).

As the Harley self-appointed strategists reportedly told their emissaries prior to their departure to Italy to clinch the deal : "don't come back without it!" .

Here's the story from said Italian sources: The emissaries obeyed without even bothering to question the divine strategy, let alone requesting an independant appraisal of MV Agusta's notoriously window-dressed books. The chief emissary was named CEO of the MV Agusta operation shortly thereafter. I read somewhere that he has since been appropriately elevated to Harley's Board of Directors, whose agenda is all about slashing jobs and closing plants in the USA (not only Buell's!), monitoring (= choking/antagonizing) the existing world-wide dealer network ... while simultaneously broadcasting the brass' wet dreams about their new Indian romance.

If I were still a HD stockholder, I would contribute to a class action against said Board on mismanagement/shareholder value destruction/ social irresponsibility grounds (stupidity not being a criminal charge, regrettably).

Enough said. HD, or, at least its current management team, deserves to die, I submit. Jamie

Speedtrip

Tell us how you really feel Jamie. What method would you suggest: boiled in their own gear oil, or death by a thousand brats.

Jamie

I told you how I (former HD owner and shareholder) felt about it, didn't I? Or do you want me to lay it any thicker?

It's all self-inflicted, Speedtrip .

The MV and Buell debacles aside, Harley's financial subsidiary is tanking. Bankers and investors who normally (often cynically) find instant solace in plant closures and/or payroll trimming are sceptical, at best.

Way too many subsidized financing plans waved at way too many border-line or even plain insolvent prospects. Way too many left-over 2009 models (although the "model year" concept is utterly farcical in HD's case) sitting in dealers' showrooms. Way too skewed an existing customer base, with an average age of 55 (at least in the USA).

No delivered or even expectable home-made R&D at all in recent years (The V-Rod engine being Porsche-designed, the "liquid" Buell engine being made by Rotax, the "better brakes" being Brambo-branded, etc.). None whatsoever, if you allow me to exclude "denim" paint jobs and 3-dimensional tank "cloisonné" (sic) emblems from the innovation perspective.

So no "method" on my part . No euthanasia. No Jamie voodoo spell. Just time. Relentless and implacable, as it is for all of us as individuals.

I persist: HD will soon be motorcycle history. The only question left is how soon the obituary is gonna be pronounced.

And inevitably lamented.

Jamie

The Prophet

But wait... there's more!

Let's not rule out a "Bail-out" via the US taxpayer from Obama Motors % Co.!

Is H-D "Too big" to let fail?

I would guess it depends on how much H-D donated to the Obama campaign fund, and how much they would commit to in 2012?

This way, the CEO's and CFO's can award themselves bigger bonus and exit payouts, along with pricey upper management forays to Vegas and Hawaii just before the closure. We wouldn't want these guys to leave empty-handed would we?

I'll backpeddle a little here, as I really do not want them to go under, really. Sadly, it's almost like watching "World's Dumbest Criminals, Part 7", but in this case it's "World Dumbest CEO's". Do any of these Three Piece Suit bratwurst stuffing cheese tossers have a clue?

I'll stick with 2012 as the deciding date. I would think that someone like Honda might finally pick 'em up at the liquidation sale, just for kicks and giggles. Suzuki maybe as well, as they don't really have a Goldwing or Concourse style mega-cruiser to speak of.

Ride Safe!

Bob