| Author | Message | ||
     Hughlysses |
Posted to Facebook shortly after noon EDT today:
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| Wolfridgerider |
Looking forward to some details.... | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Interesting times as they say. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Can somebody stream it live? It would be like the NFL draft.  | ||
| Davegess |
I suspect it will be vey quiet with pieces of paper being exchange interrupted by unintelligible legalese  The result will be approve by a judge a couple of day later and then they will be part of the public record. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I suspect it will be vey quiet with pieces of paper being exchange interrupted by unintelligible legalese So it would be more like watching a golf match, eh?  | ||
| Badgerbueller1125 |
If anyone has information as to where this will be taking place please let me know. I'm in the Milwaukee area. | ||
| Steveford |
If Donald Trump gets it we can be sure of lots of entertainment value in the years to come as he pisses off everyone on the planet. | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
When they say 'assets' are they going to sell everything at once or sort of piece by piece (with machinery, parts, motorcycles etc)? | ||
| Fresnobuell |
I hope its not like Buell, when it was picked apart by vultures. That would certainly spell DOOM for any prospects of EBR to continue. It's like bad deja vu. | ||
| Hughlysses |
When they say 'assets' are they going to sell everything at once or sort of piece by piece (with machinery, parts, motorcycles etc)? Posted to EBR's Facebook page about an hour after the first post:
From what's been posted previously about a "receivership", the idea is to maximize the value of the company by selling it (mostly) intact, which should generate more money than selling it piece-by-piece. | ||
| Davegess |
Milwaukee Athletic Club is the site of the sale I think. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If any insiders are there to give us the play by play, that would be awsome. Feel free to post anony if that would be helpful. | ||
| Tpoppa |
Posted on the face book site: It's certainly great for America that there is somebody trying to build sportier bikes in the USA, but from the perspective of somebody in the UK who has watched John Bloor turn Triumph from nothing more than a well tarnished nameplate bought from the overgrown rusty remnants of the old bankrupt Triumph company into a world class full spectrum motorcycle manufacturer, I cannot for the life of me see how EBR ever hopes to be an independently successful going concern under Mr Buell, and since it's an eponymous company that mainly exists to build his whacky ideas, good and bad, and let him go racing with them, rather than as a hard nosed commercial exercise in manufacturing & commercial ROI, it's very hard for me to get my head around what the commercial future of the brand could possibly be... nobody is going to attempt to build a Panigale killer, or even a credible Panigale competitor as their first saleable product and be technically successful with it. Even if every bright idea on the bike works better than expected and is a huge leap forward, Ducati have been doing this so long that their bike is going to be better integrated, better packaged, in fact all round better. And of course if this is your first product, not all your ideas will work, or be well implemented. Also, your customers are conservative... some won't buy anything that looks different than what they have always had, true, but a hell of a lot more aren't going to be the ones who buy a bike with rim mounted brake disks until the technology has been proven to be better. So far... umm... it really hasn't, on the track or road. If it did work noticeably better, there would be a queue round the block to license the technology involved... but there apparently isn't AFAIK... perhaps it is beter but nobody knows yet, but that's the same difference commercially. And then, you only have this not-Panigale-killer to sell. Ducatt, who already have a global dealer network and brand recognition and a tobacco sponsor to pay a bazillion to fund their racing habit and a deep pocketed auto industry sugar daddy in Audi with massive technical resources of their own to put at Ducatis disposal if needed, will have economies of scale. They will sell a lot of Panigales, but more importantly they will put the same engine into Multistradas and Diavels and Streetfighters, and thus be able to split the engine R&D pie more ways to get a commercial return. When Triumph 'came back' (though it was launched from scratch with nothing but a name and a single employee re-employed from the old company to hand paint the coach-lining on tanks), they focussed on getting production right using the latest and greatest computer controlled kit and techniques. The original first gen bikes they built were functional, competent, solid, over-engineered, mature technology and reliable mechanically, to re-establish the brand. They were also modular so that the same basic platform would cover multiple genres and target markets, and get the biggest bang for the rich owner's property development buck. Basically, the complete antithesis of what has appeared to be the EBR approach. I'm sorry to say this, but I think Erik is destined to crash & burn repeatedly for as long as he tries to run a motorcycle manufacturing business until nobody will pay for him to try again. It strikes me that a perfect format for him to test his innovative ideas competitively would be in the Moto2 World Championship. Designing and building a one off Moto2 bike would allow him to test his ideas in the environment he loves best, without destroying the prospects of the US ever having a successful domestic motorcycle manufacturer of anything that isn't overly chromed rolling roadblocks... Perhaps Victory could pick up the baton? Some good insight in that post. Moto2, where all bikes use the same motor (supplied by Honda), would seem to be a better proving ground for EBR ideas than the former WSBK effort. If the all engines are equal, you can better tell if different approaches to chassis, brakes, etc. actually resulted in a performance advantage. | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
He ran out of track. Canepa was making some headway. He just got broadsided by Hero. It would be interesting to see where they would be had Hero not pulled the rug out from under them. | ||
| Ourdee |
I knew There was more than one reason why I don't Facebook. | ||
| Discochris |
Lot of rocket scientists posting comments on the Facebook thread. People who don't know Victory, Polaris and Indian are the same company. The best bet would be BRP. They may even support warrranty claims, as I believe they did when they bought OMC, and they still support old OMC outboards to this day. Of course some would bitch that they'd be a Canadian and not American company then. | ||
| Tpoppa |
I don't know if Polaris is even interested, but that would seem to be the best-case-scenario landing spot for EBR. They have an established dealer network. They are well run financially. Adding sport and sport touring bikes would give them an even more impressive suite of power sports products. | ||
| Davegess |
Erik had a plan, it involved the consulting business supporting the bike business while the ability to build a more affordable a bike was developed. It was a 5 year plan basically and if Hero had done the dirty we would have made it. | ||
| Ljm |
Pulling for them to get it going again. Love the bikes and can't see myself on someone else's. | ||
| Cyclonedon |
Whoever posted that on Facebook apparently has never been to either a. Buell or an EBR factory! What has always amazed me was when I toured their factory was has efficiently it was run by building a motorcycle from start to finish in such a small compact building with everyone on the assembly line working as a team with pride in what they were building! I really hope Harley Davidson would purchase them again and with their new leadership, once again let Erik Buell do what he does best. Build motorcycles! | ||
| Blake |
Facebook posters displaying ignorance. How surprising? | ||
| Stevel |
I don't understand the disagreement with the facebook post......it is correct. The EBR effort was mismanaged end of story. I am also certain that the consequences were unintended. This criticism does not reflect on any of the employees. It was not their fault that the direction and priorities of the company were wrong. There is only one name on the failure slip. | ||
| Glitch |
I really hope Harley Davidson would purchase them again... H-D still owns Buell | ||
| Reepicheep |
Steve, upon what specific facts are you basing your conclusion that EBR was mismanaged? And how can the "directions and priorities of the company" be "wrong"? It wasn't your company, how can you reach a "right or wrong" conclusion regarding their directional priorities? And do you even know what the long term direction and priorities are? | ||
| Hughlysses |
I'm kind of surprised- there's absolutely nothing about this on any of the motorcycle magazine sites or in the Wisconsin news yet. I was kind of hoping somebody would give us some ideas of who might be interested. I read a pretty persuasive argument for BRP buying EBR in a post yesterday. That's who tried to buy Buell (or at least the plans and tooling for the 1125's) from Harley back in 2009. I think they're probably more likely than Polaris as EBR wouldn't seem to mesh very well with Indian/Victory. I guess we'll see in ~23 days... | ||
| Court |
>>>The EBR effort was mismanaged end of story. I disagree. But then, unlike the Facebook crowd, I had the opportunity to see and know the plan, the budgets and the key players. Nothing was mismanaged. Dismissing the EBR instant situation to EBR mismanagement is akin to blaming WTC victims for making poor personal choices in coming to work the day of the attacks. But . . . .I am an open minded guy. Tell me how they were mismanaged. I'd like to know what, and the source of, your version of the "Long Term Direction" and "Priorities" were. I think the Farcebook folks are talking out their collective asses. Convince me you are not. | ||
| Xb984r |
I guess the only fact you need to prove that they were mismanaged is that they are closed end of story. | ||
| Rick_fears |
Lol. Silliness. The ignorance is strong here. Arguing about management now is a mute point. The same people will not be managing EBR again and the ones that had did what they did for the reasons they did. None of that matters now. What matters is that EBR has a remarkable machine and an even more remarkable potential to expand and flourish from both a business and product standpoint. With such a tainted reputation now, a sellout will be the only thing to save EBR from it's own consumers. This has nothing to do with past EBR management now. It's far beyond that stage. No sense in crying over spilled milk. I am not holding my breath for anything spectacular to come of this. I would not be surprised if the company never came back and Mr.Buell quietly slipped into retirement. But I remain positive. This is a great opportunity and there are many many great options that could make a great home for EBR and that could supply everything the brand needs to flourish. Now whether any of them are willing to take a bike out of it to begin with is another story. | ||
| Tpoppa |
I guess the only fact you need to prove that they were mismanaged is that they are closed end of story. Pretty hard to argue with that. You can't just say that were only responsible for what happens "inside our doors." Anything else isn't our fault. Because it is your fault. Good management is responsible for the entire business environment, not just the business. If the plan was for Engineering consulting to float the business for 5 years it would seem wise to have more than 1 large client. I seem to recall an old earthy adage about eggs and baskets. |
