| Author | Message | ||
     Doerman |
There you go again Uly. Extrapolating from weak facts! | ||
| Woody1911a1 |
whao the elusive court has struck and gone without a trace  | ||
| Ulynut |
 | ||
| Two_buells |
I'd have no problem buying a Can-am/Buell my Rotax Twins  | ||
| Birdy |
Is that an XB mirror on your Quad?  | ||
| Lemonchili_x1 |
Anybody have the latest copy of Cycle News? Apparently it has a similar piece, but I can't find any references to it on the web. | ||
| Two_buells |
>>>>Is that an XB mirror on your Quad? Yes its an XB mirror, I also run my old Garmin Quest from my Uly on it. I used to have a Thunderbolt Tailbag until I got the Can-am bag. The Renegade is a 800cc V-twin Rotax 4x4 Sport ATV | ||
| Nevrenuf |
i'm sorry ulynut, that was chars take on the moose nuts. | ||
| Ulynut |
No problema Neverenuf. Who knows? maybe Char is right. If you lived out in the woods 24-7, you might have a little...ummm..."funk" going on too. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
I agree, h-d sucks!!! But if we are gonna talk anatomy, why moose nuts?? Why not camel toe?? LMAO | ||
| Nevrenuf |
nothing like a nice set of camel toe. how fast can we make this thread go to the backfire board. | ||
| Lemonchili_x1 |
Focus people, focus!!! And not on toes or nuts! Anybody seen any other recent references to the Bombardier offers? There was an earlier rumour that Erik was talking with Bombardier not long after Oct 15, but there was no follow up. The whole "too integrated" thing sounds like a screw up to me. With the amount of financial stress H-D is in I don't think they have the foresight to have some master long term plan with Buell. I think someone saw it as an opportunity to close them down, and they managed to somehow get that approved by the board very quickly.  | ||
| Ulynut |
Agreed. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
right now the only thing feasable to do is to start a corporation that we pool all our money's to and buy out as much stock as possible and run those bozo's out of the boardroom thus allowing buell to be sold. once buell is sold, sell all the shares and shut the corporation down. (Message edited by nevrenuf on February 07, 2010) | ||
| Glitch |
I think someone saw it as an opportunity to close them down... Good ol' Rahm said it best I think. "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
You always settle scores when new leadership takes over. They take your word at face value because they don't know any better. Honest and dishonest brokers look pretty much alike the first few months in office. After you've taken a fairly simple project and quintupled the development costs and tripled the time to market, your word isn't worth quite as much. Once the MBAs start running a company, start looking for the exits. | ||
| Oddball |
If their revenues keep going down maybe you could talk HD into selling. Just get all 137,000 buell owners (rounded up) to pony up $1k each. Maybe they'd go bargain basement for say 13.7 million. That'd only be $100 per owner. Now how we'd have the shares handled I'll leave to you financial types. Then it would be an American company but with world wide owner/operators or owner/owners (o2's). All out talking up the brand at every opportunity. Even more of a grass roots effort than the HD buy out from AMF. Maybe Obama rama dingaling can throw a protective tarriff in for us.  | ||
| Blake |
Count me in for $10K! Can I be the lead critic and test rider? | ||
| Tepiddeath |
I read all the posts on this thread, and can't help but notice that nobody mentioned anything about S&S! They do make high performance motors, many of which power a lot of different companies' bikes. If EBR were to eventually do something with the air cooled bikes in the future, I think S&S is the way to go, and they would not be tied to the FAGS anymore. Call me crazy, please, but that is just the thought that came to my mind. thanks for letting me share | ||
| Jammin_joules |
" ...Why was Buell less than 2%.Buell were on the rise Harley on the decline they are (HD) 70 some odd % off last years volume. ... " We have or still race Buells at Pikes Peak, on the Salt at Bonneville, drag race and some small Colorado road curses. We throw parties during Daytona 200, and sponsored a Buell riders group. We brought in Bubba Blackwell for an event. Buell has sent warranty bikes from other dealerships to our service dept. to get them fixed right then sent back to the selling dealers. We are a BadWEB sponsor. Staff at the dealership have a large percentage of Buell owners at our dealership. I own two Buells. So as a Harley and Buell dealer, I think we got it, and still do. I tell you this so I don't get a load of attitude about being a Harley dealer and therefore jaded and part of the problem when I report the following. Prior to 15Oct we sold about a dozen new Buells in 2009 versus about 3 times that in 2008. In 2009 we would have given a grand off MSRP if a serious buyer would have asked. Of course this would have made a marginal business endeavor even less attractive. But that is another topic many here espouse to know more about than most dealer principles. Our Harley new bike sales were down better than the national average for all of 2009. Harley national sales were down 28% in units, not 70%. Victory, Honda, Yamaha, BMW - even worse, nearer 50% down compared to 2008. When folks here don't believe Buell sales growth was easily (albeit erroneously in my opinion) ignored by HD senior mgmt, remember, Harley lost more in sales than Buell made. Another perspective, Buell sales total, I mean from the old tuber days thru 2009, did not total Harley sales for 2009 alone. If you consider profit margins on the two different brands, it is easily understood how Buell could be written off by short-sighted non-riding managers. | ||
| Oddball |
I've mentioned them before for that reason. Even if they were to buy engines from HD it would be HD as a sub contractor in that relationship. Either way it would be domestic content hopefully helping grow the economy out of this depress....recession. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
so blake, why can't you become a corporation to invest in and buy up stock in the ex mo co. what was the thing about one grasshopper on a train track opposed to a million grasshopper's on a track. i can come up with 5k today. 1k for each buell. (Message edited by nevrenuf on February 08, 2010) | ||
| Brumbear |
Joules I am only going on what I read and I was being nice as the reports have HD 84% off in Volume in several reports even their own quarterly reports. The fact that your dealership and a few others are and were great Buell supporters is not only known but applauded as well.I do feel you are not understanding my point, I will try to explain it better. Harley davidson Motorcycles are contracting they have reached saturation in this market it is evident layoffs and dealer closings and plant reduction is proof. Buell motorcycle production was able to at a minimum continue it's current production rate and even increase it substantially with IMHO, and what I mean by HD not focusing on the right core. They demand better Buell service across the boards and offer some incentives not 5K but I would have bought an 1125 with 2K off so would many others.They could have increased the Buell dealers and by that I mean, require dealers to buy X amount of Buells forcing the reluctant ones to start to CARE about it's bastard child.This would have IMHO more than helped make up for the lost HD sales and brought HD into a new market as well. Its that simple really and the fact that it wasn't done makes me cringe at what is currently running American businesses in some cases. Dave | ||
| F_skinner |
IF there was a business or group of people willing to buy Buell. IF HD let them buy the rights. IF EB was still involved I would be in for 20K. Depending on how things pan out there may be a great opportunity here. | ||
| Oddball |
"They could have increased the Buell dealers and by that I mean, require dealers to buy X amount of Buells forcing the reluctant ones to start to CARE about it's bastard child." I think HD did force dealers to carry Buell once didn't they? That was a big problem cause then you have disgruntled dealers who feel imposed on. Better to positively encourage interested dealers to carry/support/promote the brand instead of negatively imposing compliance. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
"IF there was a business or group of people willing to buy Buell. IF HD let them buy the rights. IF EB was still involved..." I'd be willing to drop a grand on that! | ||
| Glitch |
I think HD did force dealers to carry Buell once didn't they? Yep, epic fail. | ||
| Oddball |
F skinner, I think "They are Us". Some of you can afford way more than I could dream of but it would make for an interesting privately held company. | ||
| Brumbear |
I am scratching my head hear. I don't see why it would matter how it was done it should have been done. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE WHAT I WANT TO SAY BUT THE FACT REMAINS IT COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE.Harley focussed on the wrong core IMHO they took away a viable piece of buisness then refused to sell it and contracted the HD line they tanked simple. Requiring a dealer to take on 5 buells when he could have 5 Harleys is gonna be epic fail . When you can sell the 5 harley's. BUT when (not if when) you can't sell them and can sell CAN sell the buells I am positive things would be different. IMHO this is the focal point HD and allot of others are missing by focussing on not wanting to do the hard things , like figuring how to get the above mentioned DONE, get Buells to more dealers. Use racing success newer demographics as a motivating factor. Finacial success would be all that is needed to change some hearts and minds look what it did for HD from 88-94. Oh well I guess its moot anyway | ||
| 46champ |
I think the off 84% was referring to profit was off that amount not sales volume. I don't know if that was for a quarter or a year. |
