American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 245 December 2019 | Page 64

Laidlaw's H-D Scoops 'Battle of
BRIEFS the Kings'
NEWS
Winner - USA
Laidlaw's H-D Los Angeles:
'Coast Glide'
H-D maintains its "robust" approach
to delivering "shareholder value"
with the declaration of a cash
dividend of $0.375 per share for the
fourth quarter of 2019. The dividend
is payable December 27, 2019 to
shareholders of record of the
Company's common stock as of
December 16, 2019.
At the beginning of December,
with 10 months still to go,
official entries for the 2020
AMD World Championship of
Custom Bike Building are at 65
bikes from 55 builders
representing 23 countries.
Polaris is to recall certain 31,987
2015-2019 Slingshot motorcycles as
excessive current may damage the
fuse holder - damaged terminals may
result in the loss of forward and rear
lighting, instrument cluster gauges,
or power steering assist.
Royal Enfield watchers may be
interested to know that they
are up to 11th place in market
share terms in Germany for the
first ten months of 2019. They
sold 1,523 units for a fast
growing 1.40% share.
Orlando, Florida based 'community
garage' Standard Motorcycle is
closing down. Founder Jason Paul
Michaels said "we will be back"
after announcing that they had lost
their building and that the search
was underway for new premises.
After the original field of over 300
entries from some 26 countries had
been whittled down to a final five
builds, EICMA saw one of California's
oldest Harley dealers - Laidlaw's of
Baldwin Park near Los Angeles - scoop
the win in Harley's 2019 worldwide
'Battle of the Kings' custom
competition for authorized Harley
dealers.
The winning entry, the stunning
"FXGTS Coast Glide" is based on a
Harley Sport Glide model that has been
extensively customized to create a
throwback to FXRT styling with a
Southern California twist - paying
tribute to the Pacific Coast Highway
and the Southern California influence
on modern performance cruisers.
"As a concept, it covers a lot of ground.
As a design, it's far more than the sum
of its parts - the team wanted full
functionality but with a strong
California flair."
'Battle of the Kings' is the world's
largest dealer custom build-off
competition - in 2018, the Custom King
crown was taken by debut-entrants
Harley-Davidson Bangkok with Street
Bob-based build "The Prince".
For 2019, any model in the Harley
range could be selected as a base for
the build (excluding Trike and CVO
models), meaning dealers had more
choice than ever before in order to
create a title challenger.
Dealers had to choose from three style
categories - Dirt, Chop and Race - for
their build. The rules were simple - 50%
of the parts used had to be genuine
Harley-Davidson accessories and the
customization budget was a maximum
of 50% of the donor bike retail price.
Grand final runners-up were Warr's
Harley-Davidson, The Crook (United
Kingdom), Thunderbike Harley-
Davidson, Roar (Germany), Calgary
Harley-Davidson, Moonshine (Canada)
and Harley-Davidson Queretaro, Joe
Tracker (Mexico) - whose machines
were all on display at EICMA for the
tense final voting.
"Once again the global Harley-
Davidson dealership community has
excelled at demonstrating their custom
leadership," said Steve Lambert,
International Marketing Director,
Harley-Davidson.
"Huge
congratulations to all of our over 300
entries, the regional winners and
finalists - and especially to our 2019
champions Laidlaw's Harley-Davidson.
A truly stunning build - and a worthy
Finalist - Germany,
Thunderbike H-D: 'Roar'
Finalist - United Kingdom,
Warr's H-D: 'The Crook'
champion."
The competition kicked off with a
public vote to shortlist each country's
favourite bike, then each country voted
for its National Winner, with a shortlist
of five bikes selected by public vote to
compete in the Grand Finale at the
EICMA Show.
Entries are open for the
Modified American V-twin
class at the 2020 AMD World
Championship of Custom bike
Building at INTERMOT,
Germany, October 6-11 2020.
www.AMDChampionship.com
Finalist - Mexico,
H-D Queretaro: 'Joe Tracker'
Finalist - Canada,
Calgary H-D: 'Moonshine’