[esoxmagnum]

“A big chunk of Harley Davidson's demographic is well paid manufacturing workers.”

I'm not so sure about that anymore. Most of the H.O.G. folks I know are very upscale, Mercedes Benz type people nowadays.

Blue collar workers, tend to buy older bikes, or S&S bikes, custom bikes etc. Much more bang for the buck if you are informed, and most blue collar folks tend to be informed about bikes and the like.

Plus, the last Harley I bought new (1992) had more imported parts on it than my Nissan. Yes, it was “assembled” here, but almost everything was imported.

Decisions like that have turned allot of blue collar folks off to Harley.

My wife quipped that Harley riders of late tend to be white collar managers, who think that being blue collar is somehow “romantic and nostalgic”.

The only notable exception to this would seem to be Vietnam era vets (who are very loyal to brand), but they too seem to regularly buy used as opposed to buying new for the most part (and they quickly pull off the foreign exhausts and trim and replace them with American parts). Just my thoughts on it, I'm sure the flames await.

[mysterio]

but they too seem to regularly buy used as opposed to buying new for the most part (and they quickly pull off the foreign exhausts and trim and replace them with American parts). Just my thoughts on it, I'm sure the flames await.

Yeah, most of the folks in my area were in the used bike trade. But then we lost even our low paying manufacturing jobs, so those numbers are dropping as well.