Harley has moved on...

[DRKWNG]

Well, TATA is an Indian company, so it will make it Asian as well!! 

lol  You beat me to it. 

Let's just hope that the new owners, if TATA were to pick up MV, don't decide that they should start making some of the Enfield replicas that are so common there in their region.

[krolik]

Man... i'm so glad Ducati ducked, no pun intended, the HD bullet.  I don't know how I would have been able to sleep at night. Just the thought of a HD ownership makes my stomach turn.
All the best to MV and May The Force Be With Them to fight a HD take over.

I had my M900 and MH900e parked in front of my garage last year while doing some cleaning. Neighbor with HD Skirt-ser, i mean..,. Sportser came up. He looked at them with his nose up and said... "Not enough carbon fiber and lacks soul... the only real bikes are Ducatis  blah blah... blah". Honest to god. His exact words. What an ignorant fool. I know it is wrong of me to feel  about Ducati... but comments like that makes me hate Ducati even more.

Fixed it for ya.

I know what you mean about the HD attitude, but the same could be said about Ducatisti as well.

I think that MV Augusta would do well to get out from under it's debt load, when was the last time you saw a new model from them?  I mean a really new model, not just an upgrade like the F4 312?

[Heathbert]

Sad as it is, MV Augusta is running out of options, AMCN has reported there are a number of companies looking at MV Augusta at the Moment because they are in such Financial trouble, They have quite a lot of Debt, They have just shut production down because they have no money to pay workers or suppliers, and they have no money to develop new models, The biggest buyer at the moment is not HD but an Indian Company TATA, They have Money to burn, And with the money TATA has to play with they could outbid HD without raising a sweat. I mean they just bought Jaguar and Land Rover off Ford!

If you want to see how big TATA is, Check out the Website www.tata.com

They are a massive company with very good profits and would probably suit MV Augusta well, considering TATA started out as a car company so they know how fickle the Automotive market can be, and I'm sure I read somewhere that the MD and CEO are both Motorcycling fans with quite an Impressive collection of bike between them.

This could get interesting.

TATA is also the company that just purchased Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

[CairnsDuc]

Reread my post Heathbert, End of the first Paragraph...

[Heathbert]

Reread my post Heathbert, End of the first Paragraph...

Oops...I guess I shouldn't be working and posting at the same time, that's what I get for multi-tasking.   

[NorDog]

"He looked at them with his nose up and said... "Not enough chrome and lacks soul... the only real bikes are HD  blah blah... blah". Honest to god. His exact words. What an ignorant fool. I know it is wrong of me to feel   about HD... but comments like that makes me hate HD even more."

Not all H-D owners are like that.  Take me for example.  I hate chrome and my Monster has more sole than I know what to do with!   [moto]

[Mika]

every make has f'tard owners.  blow it off

[Heathbert]

Man... i'm so glad Ducati ducked, no pun intended, the HD bullet.  I don't know how I would have been able to sleep at night. Just the thought of a HD ownership makes my stomach turn.
All the best to MV and May The Force Be With Them to fight a HD take over.

I had my M900 and MH900e parked in front of my garage last year while doing some cleaning. Neighbor with HD Skirt-ser, i mean..,. Sportser came up. He looked at them with his nose up and said... "Not enough chrome and lacks soul... the only real bikes are HD  blah blah... blah". Honest to god. His exact words. What an ignorant fool. I know it is wrong of me to feel  about HD... but comments like that makes me hate HD even more.

Have comfort in the thought that HD doesn't consider the Sportster as a "real" Harley.  As a friend that runs a Harley dealership said, "We can sell all the Sportsters they build and it doesn't matter.  We are judged by how many 'real' Harley's we sell."

BTW, not hating on Harley, just on ignorant fools 

[FatguyRacer]

Have comfort in the thought that HD doesn't consider the Sportster as a "real" Harley.  As a friend that runs a Harley dealership said, "We can sell all the Sportsters they build and it doesn't matter.  We are judged by how many 'real' Harley's we sell."

BTW, not hating on Harley, just on ignorant fools 

So basically, the dealer is saying that the Sporty is the Ducati Monster 620 of its line-up. IE, the bread and butter low margin high volume item. What really matters to their bottom line is how much high margin product they move. I bet you'd hear a Ducati dealer say almost the same thing. What matters really to Ducati is how many SBK's they sell.

I'd like to see Harley not do the MV thing, not for the sake of MV, but for the sake of Harley. They should stick with what they know. That's how they managed to be around as long as they have.

[NorDog]

every make has f'tard owners.  blow it off

LOL!  So true.  "f'tard" What a great word/spelling.  May I use it?   

[NorDog]

"I'd like to see Harley not do the MV thing, not for the sake of MV, but for the sake of Harley. They should stick with what they know. That's how they managed to be around as long as they have."

IMO, Harley needs to do something like this *succsessfully* to stick around in the future.  There is only so much technology available to carry the water of the low tech 45 deg. air cooled V-Twin.  And only so many wanna-PLAY-biker baby boomers to keep the sales margin where it's at.  Harley had an unprecidented run of corp. profits for about 25 years.  That's unprecidented in corporations, not just cycle mfg's.  Last year they saw their first decline in the lifetime of some of our younger members.  H-D also cut back production for the first time since they pulled out the stops about 20 years ago.

Good news for H-D's long term: the company is run by motorcyclists who know how to fix a problem (make a terrible design functional & dependable if not powerful), and they know how to market like nobody's business.  And they've supported/partially owned Buell.  Say what you will about Eric Buell, but he's all about NOT sacrificing function for style.

If H-D wants MV, I suspect it is because they recognize that MV represents a market they need to be in in the future, heck, right now even.

These types of aquisitions live or die based upon how the two corporate cultures merge/get along.  More room for optimism there: H-D has plenty of experience with our Tuetonic breteren.  They have years of experience working (sucessfully) with Porsche, and more recently through Buell with Rotax.  If they can carry that international collaborative success over to the Italian culture then they will be fine.  They may screw the pooch with Italians, time will tell.  But H-D at least "gets" working on the continent.

Harley must change or die.  I don't worry for MV.  But Harley is a different story.

Please forgive any misspellings or typos.  Still  and can't find the dern speelchacker.

[ducatiz]

If HD buys MV, does that mean we will see the Mito 500 with a Buell Blast engine this time?



I might also point out that Cagiva (NKA MV Agusta) used to own Aermacchi, which made the Harley Davidsons in Europe.

What goes around comes around.

[Ohmic]

every make has f'tard owners.  blow it off

I blow it off alright. Every time I warm one of the Ducs for riding I point the exhausts towards his front window 

Back to the topic:
I think that small companies like Ducati/MV should be left alone and allowed to create and do what they do without pressure from above(parent company). If MV is in trouble it should merge with Ducati.

[Popeye the Sailor]

I think that small companies like Ducati/MV should be left alone and allowed to create and do what they do without pressure from above(parent company). If MV is in trouble it should merge with Ducati.

Then they'd just get pressure from somewhere else....

[Popeye the Sailor]

Take me for example.  I hate chrome and my Monster has more sole than I know what to do with!   [moto]

Have you tried baking it? Baked sole is delicious.