Harley Davidson, that most American of American automotive companies, reported that, due to its 84% profit loss, that it's shutting the doors of its subsidiary, Buell Motorcycle Company. In this time of economic uncertainty, it is certainly understandable to try and trim the fat wherever possible, but this move will have long-term repercussions for the more than a century old Harley Davidson. The most innovative part of MoCo, Buell pushed engineering and design, while Harley, aside from its VRSC line, has stagnated, building bigger, heavier, and more and more poorly handling motorcycles. Harley might save money now, in the short term, but in the long run, they're going to die. I fear that the only thing that could have saved Harley was Erik Buell.
The tragedy is that it's during times like these that we need innovators like Erik Buell, not bean counting executives like Keith Wandell (CEO of Harley Davidson). Erik, with always a relatively small budget, made, for over twenty years, some of the best handling motorcycles out there, held back only by the crappy dealership support, and ill-suited HD engines. But even with those outdated, poorly suited engines, Buell made the most out of them, doing things to the Evolution motor that I doubt most didn't think was possible.
Without people like Erik Buell, where will America's great ideas come from? There's more Erik Buells out there, but if they're kicked to the curb, while the big players are given massive handouts, they'll never be able to compete. Further, with the loss of Buell, America now has no mass produced sportbikes made here in the U.S. Sure, there's some builders out there, amazing ones at that. Michael Czysz, with his amazing E1pc digital superbike (All electric, and about as bad ass as it gets) The guys at Mission Motors, and Roehr Motorcycles with its 1250sc. But none of these are exactly accessible, or even ridable, by most people. Amazing feats of engineering certainly, but all with price tags well over $30,000, if they're for sale at all.
I'm sure some might think that this is no big loss, just a motorcycle company, but it's more than that. It's a loss of being competitive, a loss of jobs. Hopefully someone might be able to buy Buell, and keep things going, but that's not exactly likely, the people with the capital aren't taking risks, they're hunkering down, playing it safe. Which is exactly the wrong thing to do. We need risk takers, we need dreamers, if we are to survive.