Posted on 10/15/2009 7:10:44 AM PDT by Betis70
EAST TROY, Wis. -- (Thursday, October 15, 2009) Buell Motorcycle Company officials thanked the company’s customers, employees and dealers for an unforgettable ride, following today’s announcement by Harley-Davidson, Inc. that it will discontinue the Buell® product line as part of Harley-Davidson’s go-forward business strategy. The new long-term strategy aims to drive Company growth through a focus of efforts and resources on the Harley-Davidson® brand.
“I want to personally thank all our past and present Buell employees, dealers and suppliers for their efforts. I also want to thank Buell motorcycle owners for their support and passion for the brand,” said Buell Motorcycle Company President Jon Flickinger.
Flickinger said a limited number of new Buell motorcycles remain available for sale through authorized dealerships and production will wind down by October 30. He also stressed that Harley-Davidson will provide replacement parts and service through dealerships and that warranty coverage will continue as normal for Buell motorcycles.
“I will always be proud of what we have accomplished. It is a testimony to what a small group of passionate and inspired people can do, and with brilliant innovations, we’ve produced some of the best-handling bikes of all time,” said Buell Chairman and Chief Technical Officer Erik Buell. “I personally look forward to exploring how I can continue to work with Harley-Davidson to bring advanced product technology to riders.
“I have also had the great fortune to meet and get to know many Buell riders over the years, and they are an amazing and interesting group of free thinkers,” Buell said. “May you ride with pride into the future. And may your roads ahead be as adventuresome and rewarding as mine have been for the last 26 years.”
A wholly owned subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, Inc. since 1998, Buell Motorcycle Company was founded in 1983 by Erik Buell and produced more than 135,000 motorcycles. Over the past 26 years, Buell motorcycles won numerous design accolades and awards, and countless races and championships around the world, including the AMA Pro Daytona SportBike championship in 2009.
The ending of the East Troy-based Buell line of motorcycles, will result in the elimination over time of 180 jobs, with about 80 of them hourly production positions. Employment will end for a majority of Buell employees on Dec. 18, 2009.
http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/10/12/daily59.html
I wonder if I can talk one of the dealers around here out of their “Buell” sign after they stop selling. Plus, in another month or so, I should be able to land some excellent deals on closeout clothing.
Tough times ahead!
Be Ever Vigilant!
ducatti makes one hell of a bike
I’ve owned a sprint since 2003. No problems at all. Great bike, 118HP nice sound, all around fun dependable bike.
I’m just concerned about parts support once Buell is done. Buells were never more than low-volume bikes, so they don’t have much presence in the market. The newer ones, with the perimeter disc on the front wheel, have some unique parts that suppliers may not wish to keep supporting due to low volume vs. tool cost. When that happens, maintenance will become unfeasible, since parts from another machine cannot easily be made to work (ex. the MuZ Mastiff shares parts with a large Yamaha Dual-Sport, so even engine parts are interchangeable).
I don’t know if I’d refer to 25+ years as a failure. Then again, I’m not Pessimist . . .
I had a 2000 Lightning, and the 1st thing I did was get rid of the John Deere sounding stock exhaust and installed the race kit. It was one of the better sounding bikes I've had after that, with power to match.
Only peeves were that it'd overheat in traffic (they got fans later) and handling that was best described as schizoid - easy to turn, hard to go straight. I think they kept the same short wheelbase throughout the run, as I'd hear the same thing throughout the years, that they tended to wander about in the lane, especially in side gusts.
It had one heck of a front brake, though. I had my last ticket on that bike. The state patrol radared me coming the other way as I was doing 70 something as I came over a rise, and he the same. He instantly hit his lights, slammed on his brakes & cranked his wheel, poorly emulating the Dukes of Hazard rerun he watched at the station.
I just grabbed a handful of front brake, and stopped about 20 feet before I got to his car, doing my best not to look at him as he backed into his lane, drove past me, did a 3 point turn and pulled up behind me.
He was pretty pissed at first, and excitedly claimed he had me at 78. I didn't say anything, just looked at his skid marks 20ft in front of me, turned around and looked at his car behind me, scratched my head, and said I was sorry, I wasn't looking at my speedo.
He gave me a ticket for 60.
Seems like that was a bit premature. The entire Buell line for 2010 is now a blank page.
It wouldn’t surprize me to see some Buell tech show up in Sportsters in the future. My ‘06 Lightning Long was a fun ride. I had to sell it this year; tough times at the BraveMan abode . . .
????? Care to clarify?
...I’m also leery of Triumph because of the loooong history of substandard electricals that Lucas is known for.
For the past 20 years, most of the electical bits on Triumphs have been stamped with 'DENSO'.
Guzzi is just weird enough that I’d be worried about maintenance. And, I’ve just never been that interested in the Italian bikes.
I didn’t know that about Triumph. My previous experiences with bikes (mostly friends’) has made me leery of any bike that might have electrical “issues”. Despite being simpler than a car’s wiring, bike electrical problems have seemed unreasonably difficult to resolve.
I never could figure out why anyone would buy one of those bikes.
They handle great, brake quite well, and don’t look like everything else out on the road. Tons of low-end torque which is what regular street riding needs, seems like a good combo to me.
Thanks. We both posted on this from different sources.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2363227/posts
You can get a nice new Sportster for around $10. My 2007 has a 4.5 gallon tank. How much do you want?
I’m thinking that the Suzuki TL1000R is a really underappreciated bike, and if I can get that weird rotary shock on the back swapped out for something more common, it could be a good ride. I’m also looking at the ZX-11, as I’ve had one before and it was awesome, though I had a -C, and they had charging problems (the battery overcharged at high revs and boiled out all its water), so this time I’ll get a -D if I get one.
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