| Author | Message | ||
     Glitch |
They are nice folks who've never had to pave their own road. Now there is a scary thought! Investment and vision would be welcome. Welcome? Buell is investment, just look at how far they've gone, in such a small period of time. Look at the vision they just let go, like it was nothing. Are the trees blocking the forest? Thanks for your insight Court. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
With this info in mind, I found myself at ASK Powersports with the wife last night looking at the Honda CRF100F for her and a CRF230F for me. The real bummer here is my father is ready to buy 3 dirt bikes and my brother is in line for one also.... Could have been 6 Buell dirt bikes on the wish list.... I guess Honda will be getting some of my $$$$.$$ | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"Change is in the wind as HD adopts a management style that embraces doing anything to simply maintaining the ability to say "increasing earnings"." Change has been in the wind for a while there. What I meant by the 1125 statement is that Harley took the cheap way out rather than developing that motor themselves. Nothing agaist the motor's performance. It was about the almighty dollar. | ||
| Glitch |
Not taking up for H-D here (I'm mad at them over the dirt bike dump). Do you have any idea how much money it takes to build an engine from scratch, start to finish. It may have been "all about the almighty dollar" most successful businesses are, after all, out to make money. I don't show up for work every day for any less of a reason. If I didn't need the money, I simply would find something else to do with my time. Building an engine would have made the cost of the 1125R way over what most people would be willing to spend. H-D hasn't built an engine in years, the V-Rod wasn't what it set out to be, and hasn't (for all I know) hasn't made the Motor-Co a good return on their investment. Going to a company that has such a reputation as Rotax, with a design, only made sense. Monetarily, as well as name recognition, as well as reliability, as well as being able to build a Buell engineered engine in a relatively short amount of time. Personally I feel it was a good move on Buell's part. So, yes, it was all about the almighty dollar, it was also about giving the people what they want, at a price they are willing to pay. | ||
| Jaimec |
Personally I'd rather spend my hard earned dollars on a $12,000 Buell than a $30,000 Roehr... so I'm with Glitch on this one. | ||
| Court |
Change is in the wind. (Message edited by court on September 28, 2007) (Message edited by court on September 28, 2007) | ||
| Hughlysses |
Change is in the wind.  | ||
| Iamike |
Glitch- I don't recall in all the promotion of the V-Rod, was HD thinking about putting that engine in the rest of their line? I remember there seemed to be a lot of resistance to it from the old school guys since it wasn't air cooled. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Change is in the wind.  and its stinky.... | ||
| Glitch |
Iamike, the Vrod started life as "the next Buell engine" | ||
| Anonymous |
The Helicon engine was developed to be best in class, and the selection of Rotax as the engine supplier was about that, not cost. Unlike another supplier who shall go nameless, Rotax has actually designed roughly 20 new engines for different customers in the last couple of years. Their business is motors, and they're dead serious about it. | ||
| Jayvee |
As far as engine development costs, how about that guy Britton, how much money did his engine take to build? OK, it was race-only. But the big four Japanese makers routinely come out with new designs. It doesn't seem to make their bikes cost a whole lot more. Even BMW has come out with several clean-sheet designs over the last couple decades. If Buell designed the engine, why couldn't anybody in America manufacture it? Just doesn't sit well with me having to go to Austria, maybe I've just seen a little too much "out-sourcing" lately. I know the XB parts are made all over the place. Don't like that particular point much either. | ||
| Oldog |
Court: Having worked in the "slippery slope" type of environment for SEVERAL years your comments are likely to be "DEAD" - Accurate I hope that the folks that may be leaving HD has a positive impact on BMC Sadly short sightedness by management has ruined more than one company that I worked at On an aside, the dirt bike project dead?? Err Whos' name is that over the front door? Till you hear it come out of Eriks mouth all bets are off (IMO) It's a maveric thing (Message edited by oldog on September 28, 2007) | ||
| Glitch |
The Helicon engine was developed to be best in class, and the selection of Rotax as the engine supplier was about that, not cost. That being said, could Buell have built the engine themselves, and be able to sell the bike at a profit, at a price people would pay for a new Buell? I think we are on the same page, just expressing it differently. Jayvee, how much do you know about the manufacturing process? You're writing like you know very little. This is not a cut down, just an observation. Till you hear it come out of Eriks mouth all bets are off (IMO) Believe it, the dealerships got a formal announcement earlier this week. I didn't want to believe it either. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I'm hoping Court or Anony can eventually tell us more about what really happened behind the scenes. Court obviously knows more judging from his posts, especially the one with two edits above. | ||
| Mm128 |
Some of us... are just ON the fence..... I WANT a NEW 1125R... but.... at the same time... I keep thinking that it would be neat to have a VERY NICE S1 and a S2 or S3T and save the extra few thousand for the future advancement of the 1125R. I KNOW that in the NEXT few SHORT months I am going to HAVE to make a decision.... my 99X1 is getting ready for a COMPLETE make over... and will be down for about a YEAR. Decisions... Decisions... -Matt. | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"Iamike, the Vrod started life as "the next Buell engine" I don't buy that for a second. Look at the VR power plant. There's no way that thing would fit or would have fit into a sport bike. Harley has every resource to build motors, they could have built this one for Buell. Hell, EB designed it from top to bottom right??? HD couldn't implement his plans? I don't buy that either. Especially after seeing all the resources at the PDC. If HD wanted to do it, they would have. I do agree that the Rotax is probably better than what HD could have done ORIGINALLY, but like the T-Storm, I'm sure it would have developed into a great motor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Buell and Harley work together on the Thunderstorm together? That seemed to work out ok. | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
Glitch, I don't see Yamaha and Honda having to go to Rotax for motors to be sucessful with a good, affordable power plant. They develop their own. Why does Harley have to? HD builds motors, that's what they do. | ||
| Anonymous |
The V-Rod started life as a skunkswork project between EB and Porsche; it was intended to be in production by 1998. The project grew into two versions of the engine, one for Harley, one for Buell. But the commonality became so little that only one survived, which is a perfectly nice cruiser engine. | ||
| Glitch |
I don't buy that for a second. It's a fact, regardless of what you buy for a second. There's no way that thing would fit or would have fit into a sport bike. That's a fact, it's also why it ended up where it is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Buell and Harley work together on the Thunderstorm together? Don't know if they did or didn't, also it's not too awfully different from a Sportster engine is it? They develop their own. Look at how big of a manufacturer they are compared to Buell. Why does Harley have to? HD builds motors, that's what they do. They manufacture engines, yes, they don't build new ones, unless of course you're counting the Vrod, and that brings us full circle. | ||
| Glitch |
I type slow...  | ||
| Mikef5000 |
Even BMW has come out with several clean-sheet designs over the last couple decades. Yet they have Rotax make their 650 and 800 motors. It was confirmed a few months back that the V-rod motor was being made by/for Buell, then Harley took over, and made it much larger and heavier. I believe there was some unhappy posts about it from Court and/or other Buell people. I'm with Buell on there decision to use Rotax. Why not use a proven company with more knowledge about motors than anyone else to help them make this huge leap into a new market. The general consensous on this website is that Buell needs to get out of Harley dealerships. You can't expect Harley to drop a ton of money into engineering a new motor for Buell, if Buell is considering or trying to move away from Harley. | ||
| Mikef5000 |
Ehm... apparently I type slower. | ||
| Glitch |
Ehm... apparently I type slower. YAY! I'm not alone! if Buell is considering or trying to move away from Harley. I don't see that happening. Maybe, just maybe they could get to the point where you see stand alone dealerships, but since H-D owns Buell, there's no real way to "move away." | ||
| Diablobrian |
Buellinachinashop: the anony has it right about the origin of the vrod motor, at least that is how I have heard it from inside sources. Apparently there is still a little resentment about how it went down in some sectors. The motor was smaller, until the HD guys wanted it to be larger "to give a more muscular image". Then came the semi-faux cooling fins., and the chrome bits..... You get the picture. Then in the v-rod mock-umentary there was a kind of off-hand credit given to the design starting "in some guys garage" or something like that. Sad, sad, sad. | ||
| Hughlysses |
since H-D owns Buell, there's no real way to "move away." Well, once upon a time, AMF owned H-D. I guess it's at least theoretically possible Buell could do something similar (employee buy-out or whatever). Does the 1125R have ANY H-D sourced parts in it? OTOH, that would be one tough row to hoe. Apart from the 1125R they'd have to start from scratch, including establishing dealerships, parts distribution, etc. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Middle management ineffectual suck-ups glossing over annual forecasts have never accomplished anything other than some colorful pie charts. I understand balance sheets and cost benefits for production, but there is always the innovative go out on a limb idea that a management committee will never get. I bet 25 years ago, everybody was telling Erik that what he wanted to do couldnt be done on a competitive, production, sales model that was viable for return profit (at least not in comparison to the motorcycle companies that were already in production) I would have liked to have been able to put a Buell dirt bike in my garage, barring that, there WILL be a dirt bike in my garage before the end of the model year. H-D/ Buell missed that sale, not much on their balance sheet, but they sure sucked alot of wind out of my sails with that announcement. Still feeling kicked in the stones | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"They manufacture engines, yes, they don't build new ones" huh? If I build a turd, I didn't manufactuer it? "Why not use a proven company with more knowledge about motors than anyone else to help them make this huge leap into a new market." Mike, do you think for one minute that the brass at HD were thinking that when they opted for a vendor for the 1125? I'd bet my bike they were thinking something along the lines of "who's the most affordable vendor". | ||
| Court |
Some of the above, precious little however is accurate. . .much is inaccurate. It's best I recuse myself but suffice to say that no options for sourcing the Helicon went unexplored. Those who buy the 1125r may be confident they have the best engine Buell can provide. Court | ||
| Buellshyter |
Considering it takes 1.5 dollars to equal one Euro, I'd say Buell is getting their money's worth from Rotax. |
