Electric Harley!!!!!!

Brad said:

But Harley paint is generally regarded as first class.
And at a fraction of the cost of an SL

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Is "nice paint job" the extent of your defense on the "over engineered" remark?

Brad said:

It's a very, very long way to catch up to DUCATI though

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See comment below in bold. Ducati has a long, long, looooong way to catch up Harley in terms of performance as a company

southeastduc said:

HD made like 17% profit on $5.9B last year. You can't say they are a stupid company.

IMO, If I was HD, I'd outsource most/all of the bike to smaller vendors in the U.S. to keep production costs down and run with it.

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I was in agreement with all of your post until that last point about outsourcing. If H-D did that, especially with small domestic vendors, production costs would be through the roof and the resulting product would be $50,000+. Too many hands in the pie, each requiring their margin, added to the ridiculous margins that H-D has to make on the final product to net 17% profit makes that a never-gonna-happen situation.

Jello said:

Is "nice paint job" the extent of your defense on the "over engineered" remark?

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It wasn't a remark.

It's a statement of fact.

Brad said:

But Harley paint is generally regarded as first class.
And at a fraction of the cost of an SL

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Brad, please don't ever, ever, EVER have the word Harley and the letters SL in adjoining sentences! Historically Harley has ranked form over function (poor acceleration, braking, and turning), and the SL is 180 degrees out of phase with function (mass reduction, power to weight, cutting edge tech) over form.

Pilot said:

Brad, please don't ever, ever, EVER have the word Harley and the letters SL in adjoining sentences! Historically Harley has ranked form over function (poor acceleration, braking, and turning), and the SL is 180 degrees out of phase with function (mass reduction, power to weight, cutting edge tech) over form.

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Yes I know
The SL is indeed very, very cool in it's achievements and I nearly bought one myself.

That's why I originally said that Harley have a long, long way to go to catch up to Ducati
The SL clearly demonstrates that all the manufacturers do.

Harley and DUCATI are truly poles apart in terms of what they bring to the market, and i don't think they shall never meet in the middle.

Sadly despite Harley's best efforts, they couldn't get the weight of the VR 1000 down to competitive levels, but the bike did give birth to the Revolution engine.

You asked....

jdmuscle said:

who is racing a harley to really care about lightweight??

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Well, there's this guy...



Steve Rapp Runaway at Barber - Cycle News

Steve happens to get around Willow Springs pretty good on a Ducati Westlake prepped Panigale 1199 as well...