Bones
Your Humble Scribe
C'mon, Tom, don't go changing on us.I guess there's a point there somewhere ..........
C'mon, Tom, don't go changing on us.I guess there's a point there somewhere ..........
...... and one to convince the light-bulb it has to want to change .C'mon, Tom, don't go changing on us.
Harley is doing what most companies in its position would do: they're trying to cut costs. Don't buy all of the babble about focusing on their core competencies or hemhorrhaging their synergies or whatever it is they do in their PowerPoint presentations. They're looking to prop up a sagging bottom line by not spending so much.
After reading that, other comments here, my take on it, decided to buy some puts that expire in about 1.25 years. Yes quite a ways out... about 5 quarters of earnings reports...
Hank,The article did miss one point though re India and China. While they may be shorter people, it's Harleys (cruisers) that shorter people prefer to ride re the lower seat height.
"If only gas were $4.00 again huh?" You're kidding, right? Look I feel bad that this is happening-(personally, I could never ever have afforded an MV Augusta and they never should have purchased the company), but the last thing I want is 4 bucks a gallon...!!!that does suck,,, I have never ridden one, but have looked at many... I just liked the brand and some of the designs...
if only gas were $4 a gallon again huh? (its well on its way) because I thought bike sales were booming then.... if it goes back to that price... it will be again... but the casulties along the way havent been good
JMO
In 70 years they'll have a smokey cruiser day, like tall ships day...I was thinking about the Buell ad with the crushed Blast. Seems like H-D has done the same thing to Erik & Company. I doubt Gen X and Y and the Millennials will trade their love of technology for the retro-tech of their grandparents' eras. Not much to be happy about in H-D land.
I think I saw something on the new VFR site about mass-centralization. That's something that Erik has been preaching for a long time (underslung exhaust, fuel-in-frame, ZTL brakes, etc). I think a lot of manufacturers are realizing the benefits of his ideas and implementations. Just take a look at the location of the muffler on the Kawi ER-6n and Versys.I personally thought the technical advances introduced at Buell were pretty neat, but I never had the desire to buy one. I hoped the technological improvements would spur Honda to make new changes to their line of bikes.
That would probably be an excellent pairing.Yamaha is expressing interest in buying Buell.
I agree, support network and focused on the right demographics.That would probably be an excellent pairing.
--Mark
and could be wishful thinking. A search finds no reference .That would probably be an excellent pairing.
--Mark
...and HD said that Buell was being shut down and not sold because its operations are too closely intertwined with HD.and could be wishful thinking. A search finds no reference .
Well....if Yamaha sticks Buell with Star Motorcycles, you might see the same we-only-sell-the-cruisers-here attitude that prevailed at the H-D dealers. Plus I just don't see H-D selling Buell to a competitor unless the offer is too good to pass up. It might make more sense for Yamaha to simply offer Erik a job..I agree, support network and focused on the right demographics.
You need to look at the loss for the last quarter and the fact that Buell and MV combined were less than 1/3 of general merchandise sales (That would be T-shirts and other wearables.)I'm not an accountant, so I'm probably reading this wrong. But, for the nine months ending 9/27/2009, it looks like net revenue for Buell/MV Augusta was up by $3.295 million dollars over the same period in 2008. In this economy, I think that's pretty good. I know Buell/MV Augusta are just a drop in the bucket of the overall HD business, but I don't think they were costing the mothership money.
http://investor.shareholder.com/sec/...&CompanyID=HDI
BTW, I call BS on this one. Google searching keeps coming back to to a guy by the name Boo (from New Hampshire) on the FZ10A website. I don't think Yamaha would announce something like this (for business reasons) and if it were AP, it would be all over the web.Just picked this up from my Chicago friends (one of the guys over there is a moto-journalist):
Yamaha is expressing interest in buying Buell.