[NickJ]

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The brand with the bar and shield seems to be throwing out a lot of really good offers as of late. I don't know that I have ever seen them put this much effort into marketing and promotion.




What to you guys think? Is Harley afraid of Indian, or are there some other motivations behind this sort of promotion?

 

[Shuje Sunge]

I've even seen TV commercials from HD of late.

I would assume flat sales and falling stock would be a cause.

[sarcasm] I doubt it has anything to do with America's first motorcycle brand coming back onto the scene. [/sarcasm]

 

[Banjoman]

....and the latest, you can upgrade your old tired Harley engine to 110 cubes for a meer 3500 hundred bucks...good price actually.

 

[PIPEFITER]

May be Harley should try $1,000 for veterans too,and $10,000 off the CVO's

 

[NorthernProducer]

I got the same mailing from Harley and several more email ads than usual. I believe "something" is motivating them!

 

[paindian]

I live 10 miles from softail and touring plant. Was told they'll be down whole month of December due to low sales.

 

[starlifter]

While wandering aimlessly about the web today I came upon a financial outlook that talked about Harley being down around 2.6% of late and that they are aggressively revamping some of their line and dropped one model for a year to redesign it and bring it back. Don't recall which bike it was though. But, the outlook was that Harley is poised to regain at least some of the lost market share next year. I'm putting my money on Polaris though. They have a much broader product line.

 

[armyvoyager]

Competition has always been good for the marketplace. Just look at Urals or Royal Enfields and you see examples of poor quality year after year in places like Russia and India. One copied from BMWs and the other taken over from the Brits.

 

[Loki]

The dealerships have plenty of bikes on showroom floors that are a year to two years old and aren't moving.
A work friend of mine picked up a new Rk with $3k off the price because it has been sitting on the showroom floor for a year.

 

[Indy]

I now my dealer isn't exactly setting the world on fire with sales of the heavy weight twins although they he sold 13 Scouts since demo ride in august. I think they have sold two road masters. I see the green and cream Vintage is still there as well They may have sold another scout to the wife of one of the riders group members. I am not having much luck typng here so I will stop

 

[PakRat]

I now my dealer isn't exactly setting the world on fire with sales of the heavy weight twins although they he sold 13 Scouts since demo ride in august. I think they have sold two road masters. I see the green and cream Vintage is still there as well They may have sold another scout to the wife of one of the riders group members. I am not having much luck typng here so I will stop

My dealer had 10 Roadmasters reserved. They have 30 Scouts reserved.

Right now fall is kicking in with winter around the corner. Not exactly motorcycle season for most of the USA. Yet a ton of Scouts seem ready to be delivered....in December. That's amazing. What's going to happen next Spring when Scouts are advertising themselves and owners are telling others the price?

I don't really care if Indian takes a big chunk out of HD. What I care about is that the Indian motorcycle lives on and provides an historic brand for many years to come. Polaris, thank God, has been smart about rolling the Indians out. Naturally they have to take some sales from HD, but nobody is going to put HD out of business (except HD themselves).

 

[Chas]

I had heard that Polaris only took less than 20% of the cruiser market with the Victory line in the last 10 yrs, So, now that they have Indian, this will definately help them in the heavy weight class. Polaris really has nothing to lose and everything to gain. On the other hand, The Bar and Shield, has new competition, and as we will all see, two things are gonna happen. Harley sales will drop, either by competition or just by a soft economy, and Polaris stocks are gonna rise while Harley's fall. Just think, having sales with no competition for over 40 yrs. with a compeareable motorcycle. It's easy to sell bikes and name your price when you the only dog in town... We the customer will be the recipeant of better prices, and quality of machines. As Polaris has shown in the last 2 yrs. what Harley could have been doing but chose to make bigger profits. It's hard to keep a 6 million dollar CEO satisfied. Look what they could save by just cutting his salary in half. Hell I think any of us could live on 3 mills a yr. Don't you?

 

[Vintage Harry]

Victory at best took 5-6% market share, it's one of the factors that led to Polaris purchase of Indian.

 

[Shuje Sunge]

I had heard that Polaris only took less than 20% of the cruiser market with the Victory line in the last 10 yrs, So, now that they have Indian, this will definately help them in the heavy weight class. Polaris really has nothing to lose and everything to gain. On the other hand, The Bar and Shield, has new competition, and as we will all see, two things are gonna happen. Harley sales will drop, either by competition or just by a soft economy, and Polaris stocks are gonna rise while Harley's fall. Just think, having sales with no competition for over 40 yrs. with a compeareable motorcycle. It's easy to sell bikes and name your price when you the only dog in town... We the customer will be the recipeant of better prices, and quality of machines.

"There's A New Choice In American Motorcycles"