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KKR buying Harley?

Isn't that exactly what Harley did to Buell?

If Harley goes out of business, what will all the pirates ride?

Gonna be alot of chrome suppliers go out of business also..........
 
Don't know about Buell, but KKR raped the company I currently work for.
 
AMF (American Manufacturing Federation- a conglomerate of dying factories) did that to Harley in the late 70's. Sucked it dry and left it for dead. It was bailed out by the FEDS after Harley employees picked up the pieces. They used a YAMAHA VIRAGO to show the Congress what they were competing with- the "JAPS" are making a V-TWIN! And they got tariffs on 750-1000cc imports and loan guarantees.
 
Sadly a 40 year old Virago is still a better bike in some ways.
 
Isn't that exactly what Harley did to Buell?

If Harley goes out of business, what will all the pirates ride?

Gonna be alot of chrome suppliers go out of business also..........

The real deal will still be puttering around on shovelheads, evo's, and ironheads like they always have for the last 30 or 40 years. The pirates will just go to metrics, or indian's, and continue the parade. I haven't set foot inside an HD dealership in a few years as they consider mine obsolete anyways.
 
I don't have a dog in this fight except to say that more bikes, more competition, more diversity in choices, is a good thing for riders everywhere. And for that reason, I'd like HD to survive - or at least if they die, to die of their own doing, not because of some bloodsucking equity company. That said, you do have to give Harley some credit - if they survived AMF, you'd think they could survive just about anything!
 
Could be a smart move for HD shareholders. Their customers base is rapidly aging. BMW saw it coming early and spent buckets on new bikes. And it shows.
 
AMF (American Manufacturing Federation- a conglomerate of dying factories) did that to Harley in the late 70's. Sucked it dry and left it for dead. It was bailed out by the FEDS after Harley employees picked up the pieces. They used a YAMAHA VIRAGO to show the Congress what they were competing with- the "JAPS" are making a V-TWIN! And they got tariffs on 750-1000cc imports and loan guarantees.

Made as much sense as 85 MPH speedometers. Remember the 700 cc bikes that came out afterwards to beat the tariffs?
 
Reading these investor reports requires a firm dose of Darrell Huff.

I guess the question is, what would KKR sell off and what would they want to keep? Clothing was only 5% of HDs revenue the last time I looked and most of the bikes are modular, so there is no specific line they could sell without hurting the others. Maybe the Street line. One of the comments from the July scrum on this topic was that HD's credit business would be a plum, so that may be it.
 
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Made as much sense as 85 MPH speedometers. Remember the 700 cc bikes that came out afterwards to beat the tariffs?

Made as much sense as the Wright Amendment restricting Love Field's flights so that poor little DFW Airport, 3rd largest in the world, would be able to "survive."

Racism plain and simple, so sad

Bah dah bing! :drums:
 
Yep. They were awesome and helped usher in the current era of small-displacement but extremely high-performance motorcycles we currently enjoy.

Great bikes of the past: Honda's Nighthawk S was a middle finger to mid-'80s import tariffs

Good article Tim. Loved to have owned one of those back then. There is a member that has a red Honda exactly like the one in the article. The fairing looked perfect on that one. Was riding a Honda Hawk at the time,also a Honda CB200 and a Kawasaki KE100.
 
Good article Tim. Loved to have owned one of those back then. There is a member that has a red Honda exactly like the one in the article. The fairing looked perfect on that one. Was riding a Honda Hawk at the time,also a Honda CB200 and a Kawasaki KE100.

Appreciated, sir. Yeah, a guy down the street from my cousin had the Honda 700 and I thought it was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen at the time. It looked just like the one at 3:56:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOXL2jVZOF0"]Classic Motorcycle Training Video - YouTube[/ame]
 
Venture investors seldom do the company they aquire right. I prefer HD makes it on their own. I remember the AMF days, owned a sportster from those days and living in Milwaukee was on board with the program. Pure junk.
HD has a huge task ahead, economics dictate growth so eventually Tata or China will own us all.

The Nighthawk 700S in blue was here for a few years, great bike for thr time.
 
Sadly a 40 year old Virago is still a better bike in some ways.

I owned two of those early Viragos, a 750 and a 920 Seca. They were not the worst of the 45+ motorcycles that I have owned, but they surely were sorry examples. Yamaha probably made more off of selling starters for that bike than they did selling the bikes. Later versions were better. By the way, the worst bike I have ever owned was a 250 Zundapp. I've ridden lots of my brother's Harleys, all the way back to a 1980 Sturgis, and all were better than either of my Viragos
 
AMF (American Manufacturing Federation- a conglomerate of dying factories) did that to Harley in the late 70's. Sucked it dry and left it for dead. It was bailed out by the FEDS after Harley employees picked up the pieces. They used a YAMAHA VIRAGO to show the Congress what they were competing with- the "JAPS" are making a V-TWIN! And they got tariffs on 750-1000cc imports and loan guarantees.

There was no doubt that the Japanese were flooding the US market. At the end of 1982 they had more non current motorcycles in warehouses in the US than they had sold in 1982. Some bikes were selling out the door for less than 1/2 the MSRP. Yamaha even had so many TZ125cc race bikes that they were selling them for $1500 out the door. They came with a spares kit that included 5 pistons, 10 sets of rings, a crank, a cylinder and many more spares. The spares kit would have cost more than $1500. I bought a 920 Seca out the door for a couple hundred dollars more than half of MSRP. Honda was selling a V-twin Ascot for $1500.

At the time, Japan had a policy of never laying off employees. When the recession caused a major decrease in bike sales, they continued to manufacture bikes at the previous rate. The U.S. International Trade Commission decided in favor of Harley, that the Japanese were flooding the market with bikes below the cost of manufacturing, and none less than Ronald Reagan signed the order. This was just after he had declined to do the same for the American auto industry.
 
The U.S. International Trade Commission decided in favor of Harley, that the Japanese were flooding the market with bikes below the cost of manufacturing, and none less than Ronald Reagan signed the order. This was just after he had declined to do the same for the American auto industry.

There's a quote from the Cato Institute in my article on this subject, linked below. They asserted (correctly, IMO), that Reagan's decision to sign the tariffs into law had more to do with possible perception from blue-collar voters that he was the de facto cause of Harley's demise had they folded during his requested involvement.

It wasn't about saving jobs, it was about improving his chances of re-election. In the end, the tariffs actually cost about the same amount of jobs in other areas of the motorcycle industry as H-D had employees at the time, but through implementation of the tariffs, Reagan was viewed as having helped save a great American company. That level of public endearment apparently didn't exist toward the auto industry.
 
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