Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Millineals may kill off Harley Davidson

Back on topic,
My view as to why Harley stock is down.

2017 Harley introduced the Milwaukee Eight motor in all of the touring motorcycles.
The touring line is the largest selling line in Harleys lineup.
The M8 motor is nothing but a large EPA motor. In all engineering standards it is a step backwards from the TC 103HO.
A lot of people got burned with the short lived Rushmore engine and are leery of getting stuck with a obsolete engine in a few years.
The TC 103HO is the best V-Twin engine ever put in a motorcycle. It does have a couple of flaws from the factory. They should address the problems and keep the engine.

Price,
Harleys have never been cheap.
The Big Twin line is over priced. I was at the local dealer picking up some parts and got into a discussion with a salesman.
Parked next to each other were a new Roadster and a Lowrider S. The bikes are very similar and I ask, why is the Lowrider 7k more than the Roadster?
From a manufacturing perspective I can not see the Lowrider to cost more than 1k more to make than the Roadster.
The Roadster is not a doorbuster model.
The electric bike, Every Harley owner I have spoken to is PO'ed that Harley is wasting their profits on this stupid idea.
No one in their market gives a rats azz about a electric bike. The people that do like them dont like Harley and would never buy anything that says Harley on it.
Harley has gone from being a expensive bike to a overpriced bike.

The market,
The market is down for all large cruiser and touring bikes.
Indian has made a big splash.
This will level out.
The only Harley customers that Indian is taking are the Road King and Heritage Softail buyers. The Indian styling only appeals to them.
I would never trade the styling of my Road Glide for the 40's look of a Chief. Same thing with a Dyna and a Scout.
Indian's customers are coming from the metric cruiser market, not so much Harleys.

How many motorcycle manufacturers make only large street motorcycles?
Other than Harley, BMW and Ducati is the only ones with any kind of market share, and it is a very small share.
Could Honda stand on it's own if all it sold was 750+ cc street motorcycles? I have a hard time believing that BMW could stay in business if it didn't have the backing of BMW Group.

Younger riders
I said it before and will say it again, plenty of younger people are buying Harleys and motorcycles in general. They just are not buying new.
Walking around my shop this morning I took inventory of the bikes and the owners that are in my shop for work.
I have 16 bikes in here for work to be done or are waiting to be picked up. Of the 16 only 3 are owned by people over 45. Only 2 were bought new by the current owner. None of the bikes are older than '93 and the majority are 06 and up.
Last night I had a early 20's kid drop off a bike he just bought for me to get running better. '93 FXR custom paint and clean as a whistle. He paid $4500 for it.
I see and talk to a lot of under 40 riders. The young guys like to stop by and BS with the old grey beard. The one thing I always tell them is,
The good old days were not that F'ing good.
Today is the good days.

Harley has survived the AMF years, the bankruptcy years and the rise to the top again years with 3 year waiting period to get a new bike, they survived the great depression and the more recent great recession.
Harley was around long before I was born and will be around long after I am gone.