Buell is dead...

[raydog]

Regardless what one personally thinks about the merits of a Buell motorcycle....it's tragic when one falls by the wayside from the brotherhood of motorcycles. A small USA company committed to innovation that must fold....certainly sad for all us enthusiasts.
Raydog

[Flicka]

The Rotax they use in the 1125 is supposed to scream... maybe they can put that in the "Sporster" ?

I just rode with a guy on a new 1125CR and it was very impressive. However, I doubt if H-D will want to build something in a Sportster frame that will easily blow their XR1200 off the road just yet. And that is a shame.

[Takeuon]

Regardless what one personally thinks about the merits of a Buell motorcycle....it's tragic when one falls by the wayside from the brotherhood of motorcycles. A small USA company committed to innovation that must fold....certainly sad for all us enthusiasts.
Raydog

Indeed

[Bird Hunter]

Regardless what one personally thinks about the merits of a Buell motorcycle....it's tragic when one falls by the wayside from the brotherhood of motorcycles. A small USA company committed to innovation that must fold....certainly sad for all us enthusiasts.
Raydog

You got that right... It is another american company going down from foreign competition.. I wish people from here could go to china and see how they live and their working conditions, then they would start to see why things cost more here. People in america are always striving for higher pay and better working conditions, but then don't want to pay for american made products... Sad part is there are so many american made products which are far superior to the china made crap, but people just shop by price instead of quality... Ok, rant over... I lease: for all of the american companies....

[Flicka]

You got that right... It is another american company going down from foreign competition.. I wish people from here could go to china and see how they live and their working conditions, then they would start to see why things cost more here. People in america are always striving for higher pay and better working conditions, but then don't want to pay for american made products... Sad part is there are so many american made products which are far superior to the china made crap, but people just shop by price instead of quality... Ok, rant over... I lease: for all of the american companies....

I agree with you on this except to say that Buell's competition was never really Chinese. I don't think that Buell's pricing had too much to do with it either.

[Scar]

Not what we wanted to see, but sad, nonetheless.

[pbghost]

squashing the blast into a cube for an ad campaign eye catcher turned into an omen...maybe it had parts related to "Christine" that didn't take too kindly to it

[Bird Hunter]

I agree with you on this except to say that Buell's competition was never really Chinese. I don't think that Buell's pricing had too much to do with it either.

Yeah,your right as far as this particular issue, it is Japanese competition, but foreign nonetheless.. My point was more that foreign competition period is killing american companies off one by one.. Sad day for multiple american companies no matter what.. I wonder how many vendor companies will be affected by this ?? So many parts from different sources....

[dadofthree]

I bet the remaining Buells go quick, sad to hear.

[mikejmd]

Better get your Buell foot-peg mod while supplies last!

[Mr Bogus]

You got that right... It is another american company going down from foreign competition.. I wish people from here could go to china and see how they live and their working conditions, then they would start to see why things cost more here. People in america are always striving for higher pay and better working conditions, but then don't want to pay for american made products... Sad part is there are so many american made products which are far superior to the china made crap, but people just shop by price instead of quality... Ok, rant over... I lease: for all of the american companies....

not to side track the thread too bad, but "free enterprise" is what the US grew on.. we could build bigger, better, faster for less... we are now getting beat with our own standards... if we can produce bigger, faster, better for less $$ then we will again rise to the top..

Can not change the rules just because someone is playing a better game than we are..

We adapt, change the work ethic, production etc and we might just get back in the hunt.. if you want fat lazy exec's sitting in offices where the air is filtered, the noise is classical music and lunch means 2 martinis? we sink....

My guess? someone picks up the Buell bike design and continues without all the overweight management I bet they ran under.. If the bike is a real winner? it will survive some how... I bet Mr Buell has some ideas...

[bazooki]

Regardless of what nation your companies home office is located you need to have a good product and it needs to be competitive with the competition in terms of price and value. I have been following Buell since it was introduced just over 25 years ago. Up until very recently motojournalists would have a field day with the poor quality and design issues with their product. It's great that they finally started to get some competitive bikes to the marketplace but this is 20 years too late evidently. Ask yourself one simple question.....why would you buy a Buell over the competitions product?
???

[Bird Hunter]

not to side track the thread too bad, but "free enterprise" is what the US grew on.. we could build bigger, better, faster for less... we are now getting beat with our own standards... if we can produce bigger, faster, better for less $$ then we will again rise to the top..

Can not change the rules just because someone is playing a better game than we are..

We adapt, change the work ethic, production etc and we might just get back in the hunt.. if you want fat lazy exec's sitting in offices where the air is filtered, the noise is classical music and lunch means 2 martinis? we sink....

My guess? someone picks up the Buell bike design and continues without all the overweight management I bet they ran under.. If the bike is a real winner? it will survive some how... I bet Mr Buell has some ideas...

Definitely right there as well.. Way too many abuses that drive our costs up for sure.. So many points and comparisons to make to do it here, but living conditions, working conditions, pay, healthcare, SDI, etc., really play into our pricing very heavily.. It's a very unlevel playing field to say the least...

[tegbusa]

Sad, I was just standing in front of a 1125 at the dealer this morning!!!

[GMbusa]

I wonder what HD's forward thinking strategy is. I bet that this has something with them aquiring MV. Could a Harley badged MV be in the future?

[bazooki]

I wonder what HD's forward thinking strategy is. I bet that this has something with them aquiring MV. Could a Harley badged MV be in the future?

I believe that it said in the article that they have divested from MV so that is a no go.

My guess is their strategy is to stop the bleeding before all the doors close.

[TonyMastodon]

Sad, I was just standing in front of a 1125 at the dealer this morning!!!

go buy one!!

[bazooki]

go buy one!!

Funny timing but just this past week they aired a motorcycle specific episode of Car Business on RoB Tv where they we at one of the big HD dealerships and talked about how they only had a couple of Buells stuck off in a corner. Was this a long term plan for success and given the lack of sales and service support when it was part of the lineup do you really want to deal with HD stores after the line is history?

[DaCol.]

Hummmmmmmmmmmm , does that mean NO MORE Buells in NHRA Drags ???

Guess, Harley want have any competition any more

[mjrfd99]

You got that right... It is another american company going down from foreign competition.. I wish people from here could go to china and see how they live and their working conditions, then they would start to see why things cost more here. People in america are always striving for higher pay and better working conditions, but then don't want to pay for american made products... Sad part is there are so many american made products which are far superior to the china made crap, but people just shop by price instead of quality... Ok, rant over... I lease: for all of the american companies....

American company executives, ya know the ones. They give big bucks to the politocraps then send our jobs to China. NAFTA etc .... SCREWED the american worker. Billions for CEO's--- for the worker BOHICA

America is dead.