WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Please explain when and how your tax dollars got delivered to HD, Inc. You must be thinking about Chrysler or the Railroads... The reality was it just cost MORE to purchase a imported bike for a few years... that cost was paid by people who purchased imported bikes.Rocketdork wrote:Ok, Harley didn't have the resourses to ride it out without a HUGE influx of cash from the US government and punative taxes and import duties on the imports. Without these things Harley would have been as dead as Indian is now. In a way I own a piece of every Harley made, I paid my taxes
I'm FREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
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Pigman
I've watched this thread develop, and held my toung, but I'm afraid I can't any longer.
<getting up on the ol soap box>
Let's go through history to the modern day with respect to Harley. In the 70s, HD was producing an inferior product. Every last one of the darned things leaked oil. Honda came up with a product that didn't AND was affordable (superior product). The US government, as a reaction to the outcome, imposed taxes against imported bikes and Harley started to financially recover. But this is all history and not terribly germane to my central point.
Harley has gone through somewhat of a renaissance. Somehow, (and I only say this a most American companies haven’t figured it out) come to the conclusion that attention to quality will bread quantity. Do you realize Harley is the only MC company, to my knowledge, using Ion Sensing Ignition Management!? That little bobble alone is much more complex and much more important than all the techie widgets on any other bike combined! But the Harley guys haven’t stopped there. You can find briefs on parasitic properties of push rod engines and how to overcome them all over the net.
As far as nationalism and capitalism are concerned, I believe you should buy the best product for your money, no matter the country of origin. If you don’t, this innovative land we call home won’t learn the valuable lessons other countries learn on a daily basis and Harley will stop innovating and pushing the very boundaries of internal combustion.
</getting up on the ol soap box>
<getting up on the ol soap box>
Let's go through history to the modern day with respect to Harley. In the 70s, HD was producing an inferior product. Every last one of the darned things leaked oil. Honda came up with a product that didn't AND was affordable (superior product). The US government, as a reaction to the outcome, imposed taxes against imported bikes and Harley started to financially recover. But this is all history and not terribly germane to my central point.
Harley has gone through somewhat of a renaissance. Somehow, (and I only say this a most American companies haven’t figured it out) come to the conclusion that attention to quality will bread quantity. Do you realize Harley is the only MC company, to my knowledge, using Ion Sensing Ignition Management!? That little bobble alone is much more complex and much more important than all the techie widgets on any other bike combined! But the Harley guys haven’t stopped there. You can find briefs on parasitic properties of push rod engines and how to overcome them all over the net.
As far as nationalism and capitalism are concerned, I believe you should buy the best product for your money, no matter the country of origin. If you don’t, this innovative land we call home won’t learn the valuable lessons other countries learn on a daily basis and Harley will stop innovating and pushing the very boundaries of internal combustion.
</getting up on the ol soap box>
"The age demanded that we sing, and cut away our tongue. The age demanded that we flow, and hammered in the bung. The age demanded that we dance, and jammed us into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed the sort of shit that it demanded."
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Rocketdork
- A.B. Normal
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- Location: The City of NOT Spokane
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Sorry, my bad, my memory didn't serve me correctly. Still doesn't change my point though. HD couldn't compete on a level playing field so the gov't stepped in and tilted things in their favor. Not a good example of capitalism, but a nice example of nationalism.Pigman wrote:WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Please explain when and how your tax dollars got delivered to HD, Inc. You must be thinking about Chrysler or the Railroads... The reality was it just cost MORE to purchase a imported bike for a few years... that cost was paid by people who purchased imported bikes.
Still gotta say, that I can buy more bike for less money if I shop elsewhere...I don't like paying for mystique, give me real value for my money.
sorry
"A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons"
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Pigman
What a great forum this is...
Of course the truth is that HD actually benefited from the forces of the Japanese invasion in that they were forced to come up with a quality product or get out of the game.
A weird side effect of the Honda imports was to put more people on bikes. (You meet the nicest people on a Honda) HD in the old days only producted leaky, shovel heads with huge engines (for the time) and a real bad boy image.
After HD came up with the EVOLUTION engine, sales started to sky rocket. Turns out that people really did want Harleys, just not ones that required you to be a HD mechanic to really survive with one.
A large number of previous Honda/Suzi owners (YES.. me 2) (my bike prior to the HD was a 1976 Suzi 850GL) did migrate into the larger twins and HD made a huge growth curve. Their were actually times that it took almost a year to purchase a new one due to capacity not being able to meet demand.
The high end Hogs.. such as the RoadKing are every bit as advanced as any Japanese bike. They have fuel injection, 88 cubic inches and are as reliable as a bloody Gold Wing. (Yup.. probably cost twice as much!)
Interesting discussion as usual, many twists and moved away from the great news of Bio's complete recovery.
I think we are ready for a RocketDork Cliff Notes version ...
Of course the truth is that HD actually benefited from the forces of the Japanese invasion in that they were forced to come up with a quality product or get out of the game.
A weird side effect of the Honda imports was to put more people on bikes. (You meet the nicest people on a Honda) HD in the old days only producted leaky, shovel heads with huge engines (for the time) and a real bad boy image.
After HD came up with the EVOLUTION engine, sales started to sky rocket. Turns out that people really did want Harleys, just not ones that required you to be a HD mechanic to really survive with one.
A large number of previous Honda/Suzi owners (YES.. me 2) (my bike prior to the HD was a 1976 Suzi 850GL) did migrate into the larger twins and HD made a huge growth curve. Their were actually times that it took almost a year to purchase a new one due to capacity not being able to meet demand.
The high end Hogs.. such as the RoadKing are every bit as advanced as any Japanese bike. They have fuel injection, 88 cubic inches and are as reliable as a bloody Gold Wing. (Yup.. probably cost twice as much!)
Interesting discussion as usual, many twists and moved away from the great news of Bio's complete recovery.
I think we are ready for a RocketDork Cliff Notes version ...
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Rocketdork
- A.B. Normal
- Posts: 1489
- Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:13 pm
- Location: The City of NOT Spokane
- Contact:
Saw Pigman today and called him an elitist snob...he laughed, so did I.
But it started me thinking about he passion around HD and Japanese imports.
A couple of thoughts;
HD owners tend to think of their bikes as the only American bike, completely ignoring some of the other bikes made in the USA, Victory, Indian (defunct now), some other obscure ones like Buell and all the customs (OCC, West Coast Choppers, etc). I wonder why this is? In many cases they consider the customs just another HD, even though they don't have one part from HD on them, weird.
HD owners also tend to exclude all the European imports from their vitriolic hatred. Triumph, BSA, BMW and others are all welcomed into the fold. Strange. They also compete quite well against the HD.
On the other side of the argument are the Japanese imports. Owners of metrics (common politically correct term) or RICE bikes (how racist is that term?) tend to hate the HD crowd with the same kind of venom that the HD owners hate them. I wonder if this is just a result of the "you hate me, so I'll hate you back" syndrome or if it is something else, maybe a misguided inferiority complex?
Its funny that you'll find a lot of metric bike owners that purchased the bike because it is a reliable, cheap alternative to a HD, and wish that they had the funds to afford a HD. You don't find this same attitude among the European import crowd. Could be that European imports are the same high priced, reliable bikes that HD are...
It’s an interesting dynamic. HD used to be the bike of choice for the outlaw crowd and those guys hate the Yuppies that now purchase the bikes and support a large portion of the HD empire. The yuppies just view the old outlaws with pity, they could and should do better. Did you know that average household income of a HD owner is around $76,000, hardly an affordable bike for the average person. HD has managed to clean up their act and not alienate the outlaw crowd. I'd say it was quite a success story, but for the fact that HD couldn't do it on their own. I wonder what the price of a Honda would be without the tariffs that I am sure are still in place. I also wonder if HD could build a bike that would compete in quality, reliability and price without the artificial controls of the tariffs.
I guess my experience has led me to a more global economy type thinking. I throw my money at the item I think is the best value regardless of the country of origin, even though I occasionally have a bout of nationalism and try to avoid purchases that feed countries that have politics I disagree with. Closer to home, I try to feed the local economy by buying locally when it makes sense. Its strange to me that I do this, I don't understand the behavior.
Just thoughts from this A.B. Normal mind.
But it started me thinking about he passion around HD and Japanese imports.
A couple of thoughts;
HD owners tend to think of their bikes as the only American bike, completely ignoring some of the other bikes made in the USA, Victory, Indian (defunct now), some other obscure ones like Buell and all the customs (OCC, West Coast Choppers, etc). I wonder why this is? In many cases they consider the customs just another HD, even though they don't have one part from HD on them, weird.
HD owners also tend to exclude all the European imports from their vitriolic hatred. Triumph, BSA, BMW and others are all welcomed into the fold. Strange. They also compete quite well against the HD.
On the other side of the argument are the Japanese imports. Owners of metrics (common politically correct term) or RICE bikes (how racist is that term?) tend to hate the HD crowd with the same kind of venom that the HD owners hate them. I wonder if this is just a result of the "you hate me, so I'll hate you back" syndrome or if it is something else, maybe a misguided inferiority complex?
Its funny that you'll find a lot of metric bike owners that purchased the bike because it is a reliable, cheap alternative to a HD, and wish that they had the funds to afford a HD. You don't find this same attitude among the European import crowd. Could be that European imports are the same high priced, reliable bikes that HD are...
It’s an interesting dynamic. HD used to be the bike of choice for the outlaw crowd and those guys hate the Yuppies that now purchase the bikes and support a large portion of the HD empire. The yuppies just view the old outlaws with pity, they could and should do better. Did you know that average household income of a HD owner is around $76,000, hardly an affordable bike for the average person. HD has managed to clean up their act and not alienate the outlaw crowd. I'd say it was quite a success story, but for the fact that HD couldn't do it on their own. I wonder what the price of a Honda would be without the tariffs that I am sure are still in place. I also wonder if HD could build a bike that would compete in quality, reliability and price without the artificial controls of the tariffs.
I guess my experience has led me to a more global economy type thinking. I throw my money at the item I think is the best value regardless of the country of origin, even though I occasionally have a bout of nationalism and try to avoid purchases that feed countries that have politics I disagree with. Closer to home, I try to feed the local economy by buying locally when it makes sense. Its strange to me that I do this, I don't understand the behavior.
Just thoughts from this A.B. Normal mind.
"A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons"
