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John Dice New bikes for '26 memorial thread.

No one will buy it any great numbers. The lesson was learned on the Indian FTR.
 
Holeshot said:
No one will buy it any great numbers. The lesson was learned on the Indian FTR.
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You are right. I appreciate HD moving towards liquid cooled bikes and electric motorcycles, but that's not what their core base wants. A lot of HD dudes will have these types of Harleys as a second or third bike, but their main bike will always be their RGs and SG, and RKs. The non HD guys won't even look at a Harley no matter how good the bike is because they are too hung up on not wanting to be associated with the HD image. These bikes are an answer to a question nobody asking for.

I think HD has to move in this direction though because their core base are 45+ in age, with the exception of the Performance Bagger scene that is huge right now, and it's mostly with those under 30. The custom chopper wave ended over 12 years ago because those bikes are basically useless and good for nothing except standing next to them and bragging about all the money you put into them.
 
budman said:
Wish they were that forward thinking.
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I actually think they are, they just haven't been that successful at it. If you ever go to the HD museum in Milwaukee, you'll see they have a long history of attempts at being forward thinking. They V Rod engine was a big leap forward when it first came out, but again, the HD community never asked for that bike and neither did anyone else, plus the styling was just too weird and if you ever rode one, you would say it felt even weirder. They tried to get into the E-motorcycle movement early on and their bikes won a lot of shootouts against other E-bikes in the class but it was a bike nobody asked for so they just sat in the showroom forever.

Everyone else tried to get into the big cruiser bagger movement and they all failed. That BMW bagger is one of the ugliest motorcycles ever made and the Triump attempts were almost as ugly as the BMW R18. You can find the R18 with only 1000-3000 miles on them and the sellers are lucky to get $10,000 on the used market and those Triumphs are lucky to get $6,000. Almost any 15+ year RG or SG with over 50K miles will still fetch over $10K.

I'm not trying to defend Harley necessary, but you gotta give credit where credit is due, and I know the sport bike community never will.
 
SFMCjohn said:
I thought the lesson we learned from the Indian FTR was that ugly motorcycles lead to dissatisfying overall sales results? :dunno :laughing

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I think it was that race bike knock offs should not outweigh the race bike by x 2 and have .25 of the performance of the race bike.
 
budman said:
I think it was that race bike knock offs should not outweigh the race bike by x 2 and have .25 of the performance of the race bike.
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:thumbup

now, the FTR 750 was a beautiful race bike … anyone paying attention knew the streetbike FTR 1200 was a pathetic misbegotten pretentious pretender. (I think Polaris only made around four hundred FTR 750s?)

IMG_1177.jpeg

when H-D did their XR 1000 race bike knock off, they at least got it right. speaking of bikes that didn’t sell. :laughing

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All of these bikes, are now torque motors, 1200 cc, water-cooled, heavy, no top end rush on the cams.
Hooligan class, stuff, where did that competition go ?

Not surprised on that BMW 1800, "Designed in Berlin" shakes so much.
The 900 cc Guzzies are designed to shake too, just 1/2 as bad. ?????

That XR 1000, they flipped the shifter ? I don't remember that.
 
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IMHO the V-Rod was a drag bike first and second a straight line Crusier for the general public.
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V Rod Drag Bike.png
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Yes, the Rev Max motor was a huge leap forward.

Yes, the Indian FTR had just kinda weird styling proportions.

Yes, Harley's core is big touring bikes but put some bags on it (no top box TYVM), raise the bars a bit and some tweaks to the fairing and it would be nice looking
Sport Touring bike with some punch to it!

I'd buy one. :x
HD Rev-Max 1250.png
 
FLH03RIDER said:
IMHO the V-Rod was a drag bike first and second a straight line Crusier for the general public.
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View attachment 591974
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Yes, the Rev Max motor was a huge leap forward.

Yes, the Indian FTR had just kinda weird styling proportions.

Yes, Harley's core is big touring bikes but put some bags on it (no top box TYVM), raise the bars a bit and some tweaks to the fairing and it would be nice looking
Sport Touring bike with some punch to it!

I'd buy one. :x
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VeffinMAX FTW

web-IMG_1016.jpg
 
SFMCjohn said:
when H-D did their XR 1000 race bike knock off, they at least got it right. speaking of bikes that didn’t sell. :laughing

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Paging Enchanter.
That's still the only Harley I'd ever own......(not named 1978 Cafe Racer)

I also recall reading somewhere that the V-Rod was intended to "ease" the Harley purists out of the stone age with liquid cooling.
We all know how that went over.....
 
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Older shaft drive V-Max ?
Having owned a V-rod, I realize the confusion, about what it is, ,
My take, pull the air cover off, twist the throttle, and take a peek @ those intake valves,
RIGHT there.

I rode a Pan Am, a dirty street bike with a v-rod motor, I'm confused.
Same motor for the third gen Sportster, too.

Everything but that big inch water cooled touring boat.
Harley didn't make.
 
CDONA said:
I rode a Pan Am, a dirty street bike with a v-rod motor, I'm confused.
Same motor for the third gen Sportster, too.
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Actually the engines are similar looking but no interchangeable parts. The V-Rod was 1131cc with 115HP. The Rev Max comes in two different displacements, the 1250cc / 150HP in the Pan America and the 975cc / 121HP in the Sportster S.
 
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