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The Pan America is official...what do we think?

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Hey FYI, y'all, even though I have my doubts about H-D's business viability, I am very curious to see what your thoughts are when you ride the Pan America. I know there are a lot of KTM and BMW fans here. That's why I am following this thread.
 
mr72 said:
I have some alternate business ideas for Harley Davidson knocking around in my head but they all have the same core flaw, which is that shareholders won't stand for the major reduction in revenue that is bound to happen when you retract from selling 1M/yr in North America to less than 100K/yr over two decades. They'd have to charge $300K/each for the bikes or sell t-shirts and belt buckles to every man, woman and child in America by the truckload just to keep revenue flat, when accounting for inflation. It just can't happen.
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I had the exact same comment on a thread on another forum, for HD to survive as a motorcycle brand they need to go private. The changes needed are just too great for Wall Street's 90 day spin to accept.
mr72 said:
I think what's more likely is a Chinese or Indian company will acquire Harley Davidson just for the brand name and start cranking out world-market compatible bikes by the millions that say Harley Davidson on them, look sort of like a Harley, but can be manufactured for 1/10 the cost of today's Harleys. Like Royal Enfield. And then it will be hilarious when Harley Davidson, the American brand, is Indian, and Indian is the last real American motorcycle company.
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I think this inevitable if they remain a public company.

I feel that you're rather optimistic on the merchandising potential, from my purely anecdotal evidence of too much business travel, that boom aligned with the happy times of the 1st decade and manifested itself in boutiques in airports, casinos and malls. Most of them seem to be now shuttered & I'm not even sure how aspirational the logo is anymore outside their core market for many of the reasons below?

I don't want to get political here (this is a detached look with the reality eyes of a marketer, not partisan opinion) but the alignment of the typically perceived HD rider with Trumpism has hurt them beyond belief with the audience they're trying to attract. And we know perception is reality when it comes to selling. My son is in his mid-20s and a marketer for a large, exclusive fashion house with a rich & storied reputation. A rather parallel track to HD & a brand trying to walk the line between being relevant today and not alienating traditional customers (they're smart & humble enough to hire 20 somethings and actually listen to them). So he lives in this world all day, some quick (again anecdotal) polling from him & his associates (who are all quite interested in motorcycles) on WhatsApp regarding HD were sadly;

"while the 1960s Harley vibes are cool, trying to recreate them is lame"
"you aren’t Peter Fonda"

And one I'm not comfortable typing here.

So my next question was "so what is a cool bike then?" Surprisingly they brought up small displacement dual sports, the more stripped back, off-road looking the better! The "vibe"as they called it was for something rowdy that no "old guy" would want to be seen dead on, "if your goal in marketing motorcycles to young people is a f*** you to society - that’s the f****** bike I want." I know one small sample does not a trend make but this is a cutting edge crowd completely in tune with the influencer model.

The interesting conclusion to this piece of completely unscientific market research is they want EXACTLY WHAT Harley is supposed to be selling! The ethos hasn't changed, it's still the same "motorcycles stick it to the man" glorified by Brando all those years ago. Except this go around it's not running from the law on open highways and dusty roadhouses, it's running from the law in urban landscapes and graffiti covered lots.

Mods - please excuse the language here but I felt it important to use the actual words in context (I copy/pasted) to illustrate their passion around the subject.


Edit: I found the Peter Fonda reference fascinating and a big insight into the customer's thinking.
 
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I got a text message from one of the sales guys at Woodlands HD and was told mid May for the arrival of the PA and that there was a tentative plan to do "demo rides" sometime shortly there after at 3 Palms Motorcycle Park just south of Conroe. I have to spoken to the sales guy and he and several other sales types from there have been out to the dealer event in North Carolina. He was impressed by the bike both on pavement and off. For what it worth, I'll wait and see. I like my Super Tenere.
 
philipbarrett said:
for HD to survive as a motorcycle brand they need to go private. The changes needed are just too great for Wall Street's 90 day spin to accept.
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It's not just a "90 day spin cycle", but even more importantly, often what is best for a company is to be smaller. However, what's best for investors is never for the value (size) of the company to be smaller, that looks like loss. So if H-D was private, they could contract and still remain viable. Maybe the trick is for TheMoCo to sell off the actual motorcycle business and the Harley Davidson brand to a private investor, and then license the brand and continue making everything but actual motorcycles.

philipbarrett said:
I feel that you're rather optimistic on the merchandising potential,
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You're probably right.

philipbarrett said:
I don't want to get political here (this is a detached look with the reality eyes of a marketer, not partisan opinion) but the alignment of the typically perceived HD rider with Trumpism has hurt them beyond belief with the audience they're trying to attract. And we know perception is reality when it comes to selling.
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I think you might be believing too much of what the biased media is telling you. H-D in actual fact tried to make an enemy of Trump, blaming his policies for their problems, which had the effect of insulting the intelligence of part of their audience. Pretty dumb for H-D in that case if they really thought their products appeal to Trump supporters, for them to position them against Trump. Way to alienate your current customer base without any plan at all to attract a new one.

But here's the thing: Harley Davidson sells something like half or more of the new motorcycles sold in America even to this day. So it's basically impossible for Harley owners or buyers to not be associated with whoever the elected President is. When Obama was elected, more Obama voters who owned motorcycles owned Harleys than any other brand. That's simply because in America, there are more Harleys than any other brand, by far.

You don't see Ford throwing the F150 out the window just because they think woke millennials associate American trucks with Republicans who they hate, right? Why would Harley do that? If Harley can find a way to convert all Republican motorcycle buyers to buy Harleys, they absolutely should do that. To think that more than half of Harley's target growth market are Democrats is pretty silly, and useless. Just like any other company, Harley should avoid at all costs any marketing effort that uses political biases as selling points.

philipbarrett said:
"while the 1960s Harley vibes are cool, trying to recreate them is lame"
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And yet, a bunch of those twentysomethings think it's very cool to post pictures of themselves with a "cafe racer" or "scrambler" in the background, both very 60s stylistic ideas...

But I think what we are saying, apart from some cognitive dissonance, is that choppers are not in style, and heavyweight cruisers are not in style. It's been so long since the late 60s, very few new buyers have any real appreciation for hippies or the 70s bikers or what they stood for. Those who do have an appreciation for that are mostly baby boomers who are all retired now and everyone's grandpa. I say that as myself being a grandpa even though I'm Gen-X. My kids, who are in their 20s, just don't have any reference point for this, and don't even know who Peter Fonda is. I had to look up what kind of motorcycle he rode in Easy Rider. I've never even seen the movie.

I think the bigger problem is not about politics at all, it's just age. Cruisers and choppers are associated with old, fat guys. Younger people just don't want to do that.

philipbarrett said:
So my next question was "so what is a cool bike then?" Surprisingly they brought up small displacement dual sports, the more stripped back, off-road looking the better! The "vibe"as they called it was for something rowdy that no "old guy" would want to be seen dead on,
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I have heard a lot of people say that but frankly I have never run into a young person who thought dual-sport motorcycles were cool. Like I say, my kids are in their 20s along with all of their friends. If they have any interest at all in motorcycles, the ones they think are cool are cafe racer types and scrambler types, even scooters. They see a motorcycle as not only practical transportation, but something you have to be of a certain personality type to use. You have to be able to handle crazy weather, travel light, not text and drive all the time, be comfortable being alone all the time, and take a pretty big risk every time you go. This isn't so much "stick it to the man" like the hippies, but more like, there's a reputation of a lack of toughness among this generation, and riding a motorcycle communicates some toughness.

But a $20K cruiser doesn't say "tough, independent, risk taker". It says "old, fat, dentist". Harley Davidson just needs to make a 350cc single cruiser with mid controls that looks good on Instagram, is easy to ride and park, can be ordered online, and is uncomplicated to own. Oh yeah and that's a $6K motorcycle. They just don't appreciate that market. They think anything under 1200cc is a toy. But they don't get what it's like trying to back a 800 lb motorcycle up a hill out of a parking spot in downtown Austin, or what it's like picking up that 800lb bike when someone backed into it and knocked it over, and then paying to replace all of those broken chrome bits. So a 300 lb TU250X has a lot of value for those users who never need to go faster than 45 mph in city streets and have to park it outside in their apartment complex parking lot.
 
mr72 said:
I have heard a lot of people say that but frankly I have never run into a young person who thought dual-sport motorcycles were cool. Like I say, my kids are in their 20s along with all of their friends. If they have any interest at all in motorcycles, the ones they think are cool are cafe racer types and scrambler types, even scooters. They see a motorcycle as not only practical transportation, but something you have to be of a certain personality type to use. You have to be able to handle crazy weather, travel light, not text and drive all the time, be comfortable being alone all the time, and take a pretty big risk every time you go. This isn't so much "stick it to the man" like the hippies, but more like, there's a reputation of a lack of toughness among this generation, and riding a motorcycle communicates some toughness.

But a $20K cruiser doesn't say "tough, independent, risk taker". It says "old, fat, dentist". Harley Davidson just needs to make a 350cc single cruiser with mid controls that looks good on Instagram, is easy to ride and park, can be ordered online, and is uncomplicated to own. Oh yeah and that's a $6K motorcycle. They just don't appreciate that market. They think anything under 1200cc is a toy. But they don't get what it's like trying to back a 800 lb motorcycle up a hill out of a parking spot in downtown Austin, or what it's like picking up that 800lb bike when someone backed into it and knocked it over, and then paying to replace all of those broken chrome bits. So a 300 lb TU250X has a lot of value for those users who never need to go faster than 45 mph in city streets and have to park it outside in their apartment complex parking lot.
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I really think it's just being ignorant of the terms. They think scramblers are dual sports because they can go off road. The kids love the scramblers, and who can blame them? They look rad.

I feel like Harley needs to take some risks, but I don't know that it will translate to customers in the door. The Bronx is a great looking bike and I think they need to build it.

I am looking forward to riding my Buell Ulysses out to test ride the new Pan America, Sunday. I want to compare the two.
 
Spigatelli said:
I really think it's just being ignorant of the terms. They think scramblers are dual sports because they can go off road. The kids love the scramblers, and who can blame them? They look rad.

I feel like Harley needs to take some risks,
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The problem is the risk they need to take is making smaller, less expensive motorcycles, without the expectation that those are going to be feeder/beginner bikes eventually leading to buying a "real" Harley. The new "real" Harley needs to be a $6K 30hp cafe/scrambler. The problem of course is that to keep revenue flat they'd have to sell 5x as many of these as they currently sell of the more expensive bikes, and they simply don't have that large of an addressable market considering their market is so heavily USA. Even if they took business from all other manufacturers in USA they would only be halfway or less to growing the numerical market to the size they would need with less expensive stuff.
 
Spigatelli said:
I really think it's just being ignorant of the terms. They think scramblers are dual sports because they can go off road. The kids love the scramblers, and who can blame them? They look rad.
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I asked for a picture of an example & was sent one of a Yamaha WR250F so I would agree, it's terminology. And yes, "rad" was exactly the term they used.
 
mr72 said:
The problem is the risk they need to take is making smaller, less expensive motorcycles, without the expectation that those are going to be feeder/beginner bikes eventually leading to buying a "real" Harley. The new "real" Harley needs to be a $6K 30hp cafe/scrambler. The problem of course is that to keep revenue flat they'd have to sell 5x as many of these as they currently sell of the more expensive bikes, and they simply don't have that large of an addressable market considering their market is so heavily USA. Even if they took business from all other manufacturers in USA they would only be halfway or less to growing the numerical market to the size they would need with less expensive stuff.
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Agreed with all of the above; Ducati have made a success of the Scrambler by basically branding what is in effect a non-Ducati build, selling it through different chains alongside their dealer network. The customer doesn't care, it says Ducati on the the tank doesn't it?

Perhaps this is a strategy HD could replicate?
 
mr72 said:
I think you might be believing too much of what the biased media is telling you. H-D in actual fact tried to make an enemy of Trump, blaming his policies for their problems, which had the effect of insulting the intelligence of part of their audience.
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This was the opinion of my small focus group, I was listening to them not the media. Their reaction to this part of the discussion were the quotes I decided not to type here. Their feelings were extremely strong on this subject.
 
philipbarrett said:
Perhaps this is a strategy HD could replicate?
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They could do that, or they could do something like re-brand the traditional big/expensive Harleys to something like "Harley Davidson Master Series" or "Heritage Edition" or something, that sets them apart as USA made expensive stuff. Then leave the Harley Davidson (without modifier) branding on what will become high volume overseas-manufactured products.

In the long run, Harley needs to remake itself so the bulk of their business is a new/sustainable model and eventually they will phase out the traditional big/expensive Harleys as their current user base ages out of the market. It'll be a neat trick for Harley to turn into Honda, but that's really the ask.

Take this like, say, Fender guitars. First, Fender had Squier guitars, made in Japan (at the time). Then they dabbled into MIJ "Fender" guitars, but in the past decade or two they began making virtually all Fenders in Mexico and created a "Custom Shop" branding for those made in USA. Their volume increased immensely and prices went down. So today a Mexico Fender is just a Fender... if you want a USA one then you have to be willing to spring for the premium custom shop model.

So Harley could go down that same path and it'd probably work for them in the same way. It'd take 20 years but eventually "Harley Davidson" would be an accepted brand label on 1M+/yr sales of motorcycles that are manufactured overseas and sell for half of the current ASP. And "Harley Davidson Master Class" or whatever they choose to call it will be the expensive and tricked out made in USA bikes that sell for 50% more than today's ASP. Everyone wins but the labor unions.
 
Fender is a good comparison. I remember the shock-horror amongst the cognoscenti (who of course were buying vintage Fenders on the used market anyway) when they first made the move but they would have been long gone had it not happened.
 
My buddy took my 12pm spot, said it was too wet, suppose to be able to start at 2. I have a 4pm spot.

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I was over there at 2:30. Misting and the roads were still wet so there’s no rides at that time and they didn’t think there would be the rest of the day. I was more impressed with the bike seeing it in person than I thought I would be. Wish I could’ve tried it out. The bike didn’t seem as large to me in person as I believed it to be from the pictures.

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The spokes set up is kind of interesting on the wheel.

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To be fair, they don't have any idea what a person's riding experience is from a quick peek at a drivers license.

They probably don't want a ham fisted demo rider on a bike they have never ridden dropping one on a wet road.



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