American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 245 December 2019 | Page 4

Harley's 'Revolution Max' - the new EVO? a long time before Indian Motorcycle can hope to be a major-units rival, and one in which the sales BMW is able to achieve with its burgeoning R nineT program and upcoming R 18 Big Boxer engine 'Heavy Cruiser' range are likely to be on the fringes of Harley's core opportunities with the M-8 Softails and Tourers. Similarly, Harley's ADV and Streetfighter action is likely to be on the fringes of BMW's V-twins. Once it became apparent that "new platform" really did mean "new platform", albeit and Ducati's respective sector dominance, but no matter. If it is enough to keep new V-twin platform, the prospect of a 60 or even 90-degree V-twin was tantalizing. shareholders and the private equity investors in the dealer network fed with dividends for a while, then the 'Revolution Max' is going to A typical Harley 45-degree layout really would be something Harley can build on. Maybe 20 years have been a missed opportunity. from now it will be seen as the 21st century Much relief then to see at Milan that Harley has equivalent of the EVO (which, BTW, was 35 years gone down the 60-degree route. Always a far old in 2019). superior and much underestimated layout (RIP the It was the EVO platform that built a foundation for much-underestimated genius that was Alan turn-around in even worse times for Harley than Sputhe), finally embracing a new V-twin layout is a these are. In 1985 Harley wasn't just circling the major moment and a major statement. drain, but was reputedly 48 hours or less from The all-new 60-degree 'Revolution Max' liquid- padlocking the gates at Juneau Avenue. cooled V-twin engine is therefore a genuine step These days Harley's problems may not be quite so forward and a genuinely entirely new platform that dramatically existential, but if it is to sustain the should, in the long-term, allow Harley to build a independence it does have (notwithstanding position in two new markets. Now, let's not get shareholder equity), then a platform from which to carried away, Harley simply will not, ever, overtake build out an extension to its present market(s) is BMW or even Honda (with the 'Africa Twin'), to say In strategic terms, will the 'R-Max' do for Harley what the EVO did in the 1980s? just as sorely needed in the context of a moribund nothing of others in the ADV market. domestic U.S. motorcycle market, but one that is Nor is the 'Bronx' ever likely to be a Ducati beater. Regardless of where you stand on the 'Monster' and 'Diavel' streetfighter-esque doing really rather well internationally. iterations debate, Ducati just knocked it out of the park with its much anticipated New motorcycle registrations for EU markets were +8.1% at 903,586 for the first "super naked" Öhlins/Marchesini equipped V4 Streetfighter - powered by the liquid- nine months of 2019, and by the time the year-end numbers have been crunched, cooled 1,103 cc Desmosedici Stradale 90-degree engine from the existing Panigale motorcycle sales in Europe will have seen five straight years of (mostly) strong growth. In relation to Harley and the extension to its present markets, if Europe is anything V4 range. With an optional full Akrapovic racing exhaust system, the 'S' version is going to be to go by, its entry into the electric motorcycle market is likely to, eventually, be judged tipping the scales at 220 hp and over 90 ft. lbs torque at a cost of just 180 kg (397 as being more in hope than realistic expectation. Culturally, Europe is at least a decade ahead of the domestic U.S. market in terms of its embrace of electrification, and in lb) dry. That is the air that Harley-Davidson is eventually going to be needing to breathe if it Europe, the total number of electric motorcycle sales in the (still currently!) 28 EU has serious ambitions of ever owning the Streetfighter market, so, "let's be serious markets may have been +66.9% for the first nine months of 2019, but at just 9,386 here", a "reasonably convincing" position in the Streetfighter market, choking on units (plus a further 46,858 'Mopeds'), it doesn't look like the 'E' sector is going to be a significant balance sheet feeder for Harley or any other motorcycle manufacturer Ducati's dust, is the best it can hope for. Ditto in the ADV market. BMW is a long way ahead in 'that world,' and even to any time soon. become a distant object in its mirrors would be quite an achievement. All that said though, kudos to Harley if it does manage to get some sales under its belt once the new bikes start hitting showroom floors around the end of 2020, Robin Bradley because the start-point it will have given themselves will have been self-funded and Co-owner/Editor-in-Chief self-engineered. Harley has a niche in which it is a world beater, a niche in which it is still going to be [email protected] W 4 hen the first mentions of the new Harley 'Pan American' ADV, and what we now know will be called the 'Bronx' Streetfighter, appeared in Harley's 2018 'More Roads' wish list, many (most?) assumed that they would be 45-degree AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - DECEMBER 2019 www.AMDchampionship.com