Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle

Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle

Wow, the 975 Street fighter is pure muscle man! Damn, what a look like a raging bull!



After the amazing 2018 Fat bob, this is the second Harley I absolutely love and desire to own and ride one.

Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle

They are spot on!
India does not have too many options in that segment!

Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle

I hope they won’t keep price like bmw for 250 cc bike (mostly they will ).i know I am guessing too much but they tend to keep prices high even in USA.

Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle

The prices are same. Whether you buy Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki or Harley-Davdison, for same CCs, prices are almost same. BMW is totally another story, they are expensive than Harleys, just because of the brand. Quality wise, Harley makes very good bikes

Re: Harley-Davidson to make ADVs and Streetfighters along with a 250-500cc motorcycle



Quality-wise, Harley makes fairly mediocre bikes. Granted that they're a lot better now than the Bad Old Days of the original 74-cubic inch, and then 80-cubic inch "Big Twin", but they're far more of a Poser bike than many of their competitors e.g. Indian, Victory, plus the smaller independent builders.

These new bikes are very probably Too Little, Too Late for Harley.

The electric will be going up against products from companies that don't have the historical baggage Harley brings, and consequently don't have to wedge their bike into a certain "look".

The "custom" will be dropping into a very crowded field of similar "scrambler" clones.

The "streetfighter" looks an awful lot like the late and very lamented Buell XB12S Lightning, and should have resulted in a very pointed phone call to Harley management from Erik Buell concerning the discontinuation of Buell as a sub-marque. Here's the Lightning for comparison:



The adventure bike likewise will be dropping into a congested market, and will be facing off (as a total newcomer to the adventure world) against companies that have decades of real-world experience including racing. Harley seems to be aiming at the more road-oriented end of the open-class adventure market, but that particular category has been absolutely dominated by BMW since the 1980s. The 1200GS is the undisputed KING, and long-standing benchmark, of that segment, and the GS is very likely better off-road to boot. Also lurking in that market are Ducati's Multistrada as another plush and well-equipped road-oriented adventure bike which will very likely be comparably priced and is also a V-twin. KTM has the dirt-focused side of the big trailies sewn up with their v-twin 1290Adventures, and Honda's new Africa Twin is nipping sharply at KTM's heels. Yamaha's Super Tenere is easily going to be as well-equipped, is very reliable, and will probably cost at least $5000USD less. Triumph's big Tiger has a much better engine and all kinds of tech goodies. Rounding out the bottom is the Suzuki 1000 V-Strom, also v-twin, which is also very road-oriented, and you can probably buy two of them for what the Harley will cost. Trailing off behind this bunch are several very good middle-weight ADV bikes and a bunch more bikes that have adventure-y pretensions, such as the Royal Enfield Himalaya, MotoGuzzi's semi-adventure bike, Triumph has several pseudo-adventure road bikes etc etc.

The little bike probably has the best chance of surviving, since it's cheap, and will bring a well-known American name into the small bike market where the cachet can help distinguish it.


Frankly, I suspect that this attempt to branch out is going to backfire, and suck too much money out of Harley at a time when they are already struggling.