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Blake
| | Posted on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 03:32 am: | 
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Thanks to Road Racing World for the following excellent article on Erik Buell and the origins of Buell Motorcycle Company. If you enjoy the world of motorcycle road racing and honest coverage of the Sport Bike market, you will find Road Racing World a very good value. They provide some of the best in depth and interesting articles I've ever seen. They are head and shoulders above the mainstream moto rags.
"A Lot of Emotion
and Not a Whole Lot of Sense"
By Kevin Duke
Erik Buell, with a Buell X1 Lightning. Photo by Kevin Duke.
During the times we've ridden Buell motorcycles, we have been surprised by the number of people who weren't quite sure what a "Buell" is. Many motorcycle enthusiasts know that a Buell is a Harley-Davidson-powered sportbike, but there are more than a few who have no knowledge of the motorcycle brand. And even younger readers who are familiar with Buells may not know that the company was started by a former road racer who spent time at Daytona and other U.S. tracks racing a TZ750 in the AMA Formula One Championship (before the AMA's premier class switched to Superbikes).
Erik Buell is a fast guy on a bike. But he's also an inventor, an innovator, an independent thinker, and a creator. Rather than trying to do what others already do, Buell looks at creating a niche market for his bikes that are like no one else's. It is this non-mainstream vision that led him to found his own motorcycle company.
"Rather than looking at what everybody else does and trying to do it one little increment better-copying what they do-but backing away and saying, 'There are some motorcycles out there that people aren't building that would be really cool;' that's kind of what we've done with the business. And we're being very successful," says Buell.
The title of Chairman and Chief Technical Officer seems almost incongruous with the unassuming former road racer. Buell, 49, grew up in Western Pennsylvania and spent many summer hours riding dirt bikes. He started out club racing in 1973 on a 350cc Kawasaki two-stroke Single, competing against riders on twin-cylinder TD-3 Yamahas. "They were just a little faster," joked Buell.
In 1974, when Buell was 24, he raced a two-year-old, air-cooled 250cc Yamaha he borrowed from a friend at Daytona. In just his second AMA race, at Road Atlanta, Buell scored a fourth-place finish, the only rider on an air-cooled bike in the top 10.
After seeing the Harley-Davidson-mounted Gary Scott battle with the Yamaha's Kenny Roberts, Buell decided he wanted to ride a Harley. So Buell bought an Aermacchi RR250-Aermacchi was then a Harley-Davidson-owned company-in 1974. "Which was pretty much the end of my quickly rising racing career," laughed Buell. "I never made a worse choice! They were not ready for prime time."
How ironic that would turn out to be.
In 1976, Buell was finally able to sell his uncompetitive "Harley" by inventing what he calls the Yamahog, a marriage of a Yamaha 250cc engine and the Aermacchi chassis. The sale of that bike enabled the purchase of his sought-after liquid-cooled TZ250D Yamaha.
In 1977 Buell became an Expert, riding his Yamaha in Lightweight Expert and a bevel-drive Ducati 900SS in Superbike. Buell nabbed a few top-10 finishes on his stone-stock Ducati.
In the days when knee sliders were made of built-up layers of duct tape, Erik Buell (6) hangs off his Ducati during an AMA Superbike race at Pocono, 1977.
The next winter, Buell bought a one-year-old Yamaha TZ750D for just $4200. "What a deal, what a motorcycle!" raved Buell about this legendary machine. Buell was happy to get off the 250s and race the big TZ.
"I was kind of too big to be a 250 rider," said Buell. Noting his dirt bike experience, he said, "I wasn't a real finesse kind of rider like you need to be for a 250, but I didn't mind bikes sliding around."
In 1978, Buell was the top-qualifying rookie at Daytona, outpacing a young Randy Mamola. Though Buell was running in the top 10 during the race, it wasn't quite as glorious as it may seem. "To put it in perspective, I was in 10th-place in the race, but I got lapped by Roberts, I believe before the first pit stop!" Roberts lapped everyone on the track that race. "He was one hell of a rider," said Buell. A faulty ignition module forced an early retirement for Buell.
On the Ducati Superbike, Buell was in fifth on the last lap before a carburetor fell off. "That's kind of how that year was. I was in the hunt, I was very competitive, I broke. But I was a good privateer. That was my best year."
Harley-Davidson introduced the café racer XLCR in 1977, and Buell raced against it with his Ducati. But far from being a template for the Buell motorcycle or being a competitive machine, Buell said the XLCR was a dog. "I actually thought the whole XLCR thing was kind of cool-except it didn't work at all," said Buell. "You go out there and you run with them, and they were in the way-they were mobile chicanes. I went to Harley thinking they didn't have a clue."
During that time Buell was a mechanic at a motorcycle shop in Pennsylvania, going to night school at the University of Pittsburgh to get his mechanical engineering degree. This caused Buell to miss quite a few races.
After graduating in 1979, Buell received lucrative offers from Pratt & Whitney, General Motors and Black & Decker. But Buell wanted to work with motorcycles. Working for a Japanese company didn't appeal to Buell, who feared he'd have difficulty becoming much more than an "assistant."
Even though he was an avowed "sportbike guy," Buell turned to the only motorcycle company in America: Harley-Davidson. But when he contacted the Motor Company, they told him they don't interview for jobs, they hire people from the local area. Buell flew himself to Milwaukee to get an interview and "beat my way in the door."
Buell was hired as a Junior Test Engineer at what he called "the only game in town." It was also the lowest-paying job he was offered. And, because he was on the road frequently, Buell's racing career stalled in 1979.
Buell spent four-and-a-half years at Harley, during the worst period in its history. "Right after I got there, they started laying people off." AMF, H-D's parent company, pulled out of the motorcycle business in 1980. A stock buy-back program by company executives resurrected the company in 1981.
After becoming Test Engineer, losing the Junior designation, Buell worked on improving the handling of the notoriously ponderous Harleys.
Having a national-caliber road racer behind the bars of some big cruisers resulted in some stress tests the original H-D designers likely hadn't envisioned "We'd ride those bikes, and they'd be just flexed into a pretzel," laughed Buell at the memory.
Then there was the story about a session at the Talladega road race course during developmental tests of the new Sportster model. A Harley-Davidson employee came out to film Buell riding it. "And I came around this corner, and he threw the camera and ran!" said Buell. "He said the bike was so out of shape, he was sure he was going to be killed!"
One of the benefits of the H-D test program for Buell was that all the seat time helped him get extremely consistent with his riding; Buell said he could turn lap times within a tenth of a percent each lap, which helped him accurately read what the chassis was doing.
"I really got into it, and I invented a lot of new tests they hadn't tried before," explained Buell. Harley-Davidson had 14-channel telemetry back then, quite exotic for that era, but they weren't using the technology. "That was pretty funny. Nobody in racing was using telemetry in development, and we were using it for this crazy project in cruisers."
Once a bike was wired up with Linear Variable Displacement Transducers (LVTD), a type of potentiometer, Buell and his team were able to measure frame deflection, swingarm twisting and fork twisting, graphing bump effects and steering angle oscillation. "There really hadn't been a lot of investigation into what the fixes were, so I was doing some pretty creative research work on the chassis," explained Buell. "We just churned out tons of information at that time. It was a big deal back then."
All of Buell's chassis development work resulted in the lauded H-D FXR, a bike that Buell said was a quantum leap forward from where the previous Harleys were. "I certainly wasn't the designer," said Buell modestly, "but I felt like I was really making a real contribution."
Buell's work resulted in five promotions in a little more than four years. "Part of the reason we were getting promotions," said the self-deprecating Buell, "is that they were laying people off, so there were a lot of jobs to get done but nobody there to do them!"
Another one of the testing procedures Buell performed was brake-testing H-D FLT touring bikes at 100 mph at the maximum gross vehicle weight of 900 pounds. "At wheel lock-up, you want to talk about something difficult to do. It makes turn one at Daytona on a Formula One bike seem like nothing! You've got this thing wobbling and wallowing with smoke pouring off the tires, half-sideways. It's like, 'If this thing spits me off, it's going to kill me when it lands on me!'"
During his stint at H-D, Buell said he really began to like the bikes. "I was doing the FXR and saying, 'You can really make them handle.' And these motors aren't bad-they're leaking oil, but we knew the Evolution (engine) was coming."
Buell ran only a few races in 1979 and 1980. With the company he worked for in deep financial straits and a "Buy American" mentality throughout the country, Buell couldn't in good conscience race his Ducati and Yamaha. But his experience on the potent TZ750 left him hooked on high-horsepower bikes. "That was really my love-the more power the better, as far as bikes were concerned, so I wanted to do a Formula One project."
Little did Buell know that his racebike project would turn into a multi-million dollar motorcycle company.
Erik Buell (6) aboard his Yamaha TZ750 in the AMA Formula One National at Loudon, 1978. Buell quit racing when Mark Jones and Hugh Humble were killed at Brainerd, in 1983.
Buell had heard about the Barton Silver Dream Racer, an underdeveloped GP bike featured in the film Silver Dream Racer. It was a water-cooled, 750cc Square-Four two-stroke with rotary-valves, with the same bore and stroke as a TZ750.
Buell bought a Barton from England in 1981, figuring it could be competitive with the dominant Yamahas. It wasn't quite all he'd hoped for. "The bike was absolutely useless," said Buell. "The engine blew up the first time I started it-I lit it off in the driveway, and the motor grenaded on the spot. The motor would just blow up instantly, and you could flex the chassis with it sitting on a stand. It was unrideable."
Buell said the machine work was so poor that the crankshaft pieces wouldn't even press together properly, explaining that the flywheels would spin around on the crank after a only light blow with a mallet.
But Buell was enticed by the potential of the engine, and he decided to make it reliable. After improvements to the engine, Buell found out the chassis was virtually useless. "(The engine) was violently fast-it just turned any chassis into spaghetti."
Buell decided to put his chassis development experience to use on his new bike, starting from scratch to build his own chassis.
As luck would have it, Barton went out of business at this time. Buell had a choice. He could either abandon the project or, as he ended up doing, going across the pond to buy the company's assets so he could build his own racebike. Buell said he acquired the parts and tooling for a modest sum in 1982. "I didn't spend very much money. They were broke. It was just, 'Get the junk out of here.'
"I was just approaching it as a bike to race," said Buell. "I really wasn't trying to turn it into a business."
Regardless of his initial intentions, Buell left the confines of The Motor Company in late 1983 to start his own motorcycle venture.
During the development stage of the bike dubbed the RW750, Buell won some club races in the Midwest on his bike. "We started getting good power out of it-durable-but I had no knowledge of how to tune it for a powerband. It was a miracle to get it running at all, and then we'd tune for peak power. So I was learning all these things that were wrong with it as it threw me on the track and pitched me off."
Buell said the Road Warrior had 165 horsepower at the crank and weighed 304 pounds.
"There were places in the powerband where it would pick up 40 horsepower in 500 rpm! You couldn't ride it. The only way to ride it was to ride it around the corner completely out of the powerband, get it completely straightened out, turn on the thing and have it wheelie. Or, you had to ride it with the wheel spinning, because you couldn't deal with it coming on the pipe in the corner-it would just crash.
"The bike was incredibly hard to ride-the power was like a light switch. This thing was a monster-it was terrifying to ride."
Already the operator of Pittsburgh Performance Products, selling leathers, exhaust systems, brakes and wheels, Buell was as ready as he'd ever be to start his own motorcycle company. It was 1984 when he announced he would sell the RW750 to potential customers. The Yamaha TZ750, the bike of choice in the Formula One class, had become unobtainable, so Buell figured there was a market for his bike. At that time Honda RS500s cost close to $30,000, a far cry from the $12,000 the TZs used to cost. Buell figured he could sell his RW750 for just $17,000.
"It was a pretty big gamble," said Buell, "with probably a lot of emotion and not a whole lot of sense."
But, unfortunately for Buell, the AMA axed the Formula One class in 1984, leaving Buell's ambitious project stillborn. With nowhere to race the Road Warrior and no more corporate job at H-D, Buell needed a new project.
Buell had a lot of development into his chassis, so the next logical step was to find an engine to power it. Harley-Davidson had some old XR1000 engines in its warehouse, and Buell-who had raced an XR1000-decided to buy 50 XR engines.
Buell had raced a stock-except the exhaust-XR1000 in the Battle Of The Twins class at Elkhart Lake in 1983, running against the Ducatis. He finished a strong third place.
"If I'd had anything other than the stock street tires-which were the 16-inch rear and 19-inch front, a hideous combination-I would've had second," said Buell about the race Jimmy Adamo won. "What I found was I was passing the Ducatis on the straightaway. I was totally amazed at how fast the engine went, and also that I could pick up a bunch of time out of the corners and drive it out. I was real impressed by the engine, and that's when we came back to building that bike, that's what clicked in my brain."
The result was the controversially-styled, fully-faired Buell RR1000 Battletwin. To keep the wheelbase acceptably short, Buell borrowed the idea of an extension-type shock arrangement from the H-D Softtail, mounting the single shock underneath the engine. This had an added benefit of contributing to mass centralization, as did the under-engine muffler.
Once the original XR engine supply had been exhausted, Buell installed the 1200cc Sportster engine in his chassis to create the RS1200 Westwind. Though some might wonder why Buell chose another Harley engine, he noted that there weren't any other competitive V-Twins at that time, an engine configuration he preferred. "(The Ducati engines) weren't competitive. They were not as good as the Harley engine then, by no means. What else could I have bought? I could've bought a Virago," he said with a laugh.
"(Selecting the Harley engine) was not a forced choice at all, and I really have had opportunities to buy engines from other manufacturers. We use the Harley motor because it really has a lot of attributes to it. It has some inherent characteristics that really make it neat for the kind of bikes that we're building."
Buell also had praise for the low-maintenance core of the engine. "So, for example, you never adjust the valves-ever. So, some of the guys say, 'Well, you've got this low-tech engine; I've got this Ducati with four-valves per cylinder.' And I go, 'And what's high tech about it.' 'Well, it's got desmodromic valve actuation.' And I go, 'And that means what at service time?' So who's really high-tech? I don't know what the ultimate choice is for an engine, but it (the Harley engine) is not a bad choice at all. It's a good choice."
After the RS1200, Buell began work on a new bike in 1993. Launched in 1994 as an early 1995 model, the S2 Thunderbolt would be the beginning of a new era in the Buell Motorcycle Company. "We really had a good design (on the previous bikes)," said Buell. "Our only weakness was the suspension, as far as handling was concerned."
Buell restyled the bodywork, improved the suspension, and made the bike into a more comfortable streetbike. "We were aiming at the Harley-Davidson type of customer to start out with-a Harley-Davidson customer with a sport mind."
Even though the motorcycle press was somewhat dubious about some of the unusual design elements of the S2 and the large Harley-Davidson-sized controls, it rejoiced in the arrival of an American-built sportbike. Buell ended up selling 1500 bikes in its first full year.
"The thing just exploded," said Buell. "It was a bigger success than we imagined, and we were very excited."
Once production was underway, Buell began working on his next project. The result was the stripped down and radical S1 Lightning, a bike that would garner the fledgling company plenty of attention. "The idea with that was we have something that will hook the Harley-type riders, definitely a step up from what Buell was before."
The Lightning instantly became a big hit. "It was pretty crazy when people saw the first version," said Buell. "The guys who were real emotional-whether it was Willie G (Davidson) or the head of Harley distribution in Italy-those people would come by and say, 'That has something special.'"
Buell kept the bodywork minimal to keep insurance premiums down, and he made the tailsection short and raised to emphasize the big-rear-wheel look. The raw and elemental S1 appealed to a wide range of riders. "What about a bike that you could ride in any kind of (riding) gear and look cool?" asked Buell. "You could ride it with a motocross helmet, and you could ride it with an open-face helmet, or a dirt track outfit, or a road race set of leathers. It's a mixture of all different styles of racing in a bike that could sort of do a little bit of everything. You could take it down a fire road and cross it up-and, by the way, go around the stupid Valkyrie," he teased in reference to a Honda TV commercial. "It became a huge hit."
Following in the wheel tracks of the Lightning were the S3 Thunderbolt and the M2 Cyclone. When Harley-Davidson realized Buell was filling a niche they were unable to tackle, it bought 49 percent of the Buell Motor Company a few years ago. H-D knew it was onto something, and it bought out almost all the remaining shares in Buell early in 1998.
You don't have to be a motorcycle enthusiast to know that Harley has been one of the great success stories of latter-20th-century business. And this cash flow is now spilling over into the Buell subsidiary, the most recent result of this being the Buell Blast. "We very much want to pull in riders who are not buying Harley products now," said Buell. "We're really hoping to do something very exciting for the industry, not just for ourselves. We all want to grow the industry; we think we have an opportunity to do that with this bike."
As an engineer with unique approaches to designing and developing innovative motorcycles, Erik Buell forecasts a bright future for the company bearing his name.
"We're going to be doing things that are really cool, really world-class development processes in the future that I'm really excited about," said the Chairman with boyish enthusiasm. "I think we're going to always be doing some pretty neat and surprising things. We're really focused on designing for customer's emotion-not technology for technology's sake. I think we're going to do a lot of things that are going to surprise people."
Also rumored is an all-new, Buell V-Twin engine that has been undergoing testing, though Chairman Buell would not confirm it. And Buell said there is another project being developed that hasn't yet been revealed.
"There's a lot of things that are in the works," said Buell, "We have several projects on the way-there's more in the pipeline."
Okay, but will we see anything with more than two cylinders? "I think just looking at what we like to do-the whole idea of simplicity, and using less parts to do the same job-it kind of goes against our way," explained Buell. "I won't say there never will be (a multi-cylinder bike)-never say never on stuff like that-but there's a lot of future in Twins and Singles."
After more than a decade of trying to get his company off the ground, Erik Buell is now moving away from the tedious task of administration and returning to his comfortable role of design and development of future models. It was Buell's ingenuity that brought his company the success it now enjoys, so with him able to concentrate more on future products, he's ensuring his future, as well.
"That's what we think," said Buell. "It's an area that I really like working with-at work, I really thrive on discovery. The leadership team needs to go off and look at future stuff. So it's not just the noodling around about it, it's being able to really coalesce those crazy ideas into new products, which I love.
"I'm on a number of management leadership groups at Harley-Davidson," Buell continued, "so I'm really linked into them. And they're all taking Buell very seriously, and so I have a lot of access to resources. And yet, at the same time, they're also dedicated to us having small teams with a lot of freedom. So I'm tapped into a really big knowledge pool, and yet I have the freedom to run a small Skunk Works-type team."
So Erik Buell, an engineer who just wanted to build a project bike so he could race, is now doing exactly what he wants to be doing. He's bringing his fresh ideas into a well-funded company that can bring his unique visions to a market that is enjoying an upsurge in popularity.
"There's going to be some really cool stuff-some unique stuff-from not only a product positioning standpoint, but some of the technical things behind that.
"The next, like, 10 years should be wild. It's just incredibly exciting-I'm having more fun than ever before." |
Darthane
| | Posted on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 01:17 pm: |
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Excellent article, Blake. Thanks for sharing. Had me glued to the damned computer screen.
Bryan |
Imonabuss
| | Posted on Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 09:30 pm: |
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Absolutely a fantastic article. The most complete beginning to present story I have ever read. Too bad a great article like this never made it to a large circulation magazine like Cycle World or Motorcyclist. I'm sure you could find lengthy ones on Aprilia's boss, or Ducati's... Oh well, it sure is good that Roadracing World is around for the true fans. |
Java
| | Posted on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 12:08 pm: |
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I'd really like to see that find a permanent home here somewhere. Maybe the "Who We Are" section, or even the "Profiles" section. Thanks for posting that, Blake. I missed that issue. |
Blake
| | Posted on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 04:30 pm: |
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Good idea Java; I'll move it to the "Tale Section" |
Lake_Bueller
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 09:51 am: |
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Blake or Court...Just a curious question:
What are the timelines for H-D's purchases of the Buell Motorcycle Company? |
Court
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 10:36 am: |
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Harley-Davidson did not "purchase" Buell.
Erik Buell owned Buell Motor Company.
1994 - Harley-Davdison & Erik Buell started a NEW company named Buell Motorcycle Company. Harley-Davidson owned 49% and Erik Buell 51%.\
Harley-Davidson, in 1997, acquired 49% more interest, thus providing them with 98% ownership.
Buell Motor Company products and history are maintained by a company known as EFB Designs and an ad hoc loosely organized group known as "Elves".
Court |
Socal
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 11:39 am: |
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Very good article. Very happy I own the project of a determined engineer with a passion for innovation and originality. |
Blackbelt
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 12:13 pm: |
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I have heard the story passed around but i am glad to get it "stright from the horses mouth" so to speak. AWESOME article thanks blake |
Rocketman
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 10:36 pm: |
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Very nice article , thanks Blake.
Rocket |
Randomguy3
| | Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2014 - 12:40 pm: |
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great read. Thanks. |
Blake
| | Posted on Monday, June 08, 2020 - 02:24 pm: |
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Worth moving out of the archives for good. |
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Erik Buell and the Story of the Buell Motorcycle Company