Harley buying Ducati

[cusso ken]

My 85 1240 Shovel was still going at 14000Ks with only a bit of lifter noise the gear box was untouched and as smooth as silk

Sorry that was 140000 Ks, my bad!

 

[cusso ken]

AMF no longer owned Harley after 1981 as Willie Davidson and a group of investors bought the company back. You were lucky Ken as AMF made a lot of junk. They are mostly the reason for a lot of the oil jokes and others.

By 1994 Harley had sorted out the Shovel engine ,electrics, gearbox/clutch and the FXRS was the best handling Harley produced up to that time, still the best sounding Harley exhaust ever ,ridden like they were designed for they were very reliable, just not a sports bike engine

 

[Old N' Grumpy]

By 1994 Harley had sorted out the Shovel engine ,electrics, gearbox/clutch and the FXRS was the best handling Harley produced up to that time, still the best sounding Harley exhaust ever ,ridden like they were designed for they were very reliable, just not a sports bike engine

Yup...agreed...shovels by far sound the best of ANY Harley engine. With all due respect unless I misunderstood your post the 1994 engines were the Evolution's. Their production was from 1984-1999 and then the Twin Cam was introduced.

 

[geneseo1911]

Just a thought.... would ducati sell many more bikes if it had the Harley dealer network to back them up? There 's half a dozen Harley dealers within an hour of here, 4 within 30min., and I live 30 miles from the nearest city over 10k population. The closest triumph dealer is two hours away. Most of the people who see my rocket say its cool, but where do you get it worked on? Being your own mechanic is almost a necessity for the triumph owner.

If Harley could get its dealers on board, they'd have a great selling point in that alone. I think that's where they wanted to take buell, but the target market didn't like the engine, and erik is a great designer but a poor businessman.

I for one wish for nothing but the best for the moco. Yeah the koolaid drinkers are annoying, but I can respect the bikes. The more people on two wheels the better for all of us.

 

[barbagris]

Just a thought.... would ducati sell many more bikes if it had the Harley dealer network to back them up?

Not in Europe. When HD bought Buell the first thing most of their franchised dealers had to do was mount a new showroom in order to sell them.

Small dealers just bought a few bikes and stuffed them away in a corner and simply forgot about them. Dealers with interest had to hire new salesmen - most were from Sportsbike shops oddly a lot were Laverda folk. That's overhead. Very Few DEALERS PRINCIPAL could be bothered and in todays economic climate I'd say they'll be less inclined.

Ducati owners buy Ducatis BECAUSE they are ITALIAN and TRACK PROVEN. Before Ducati returned to racing they were close to closure. Ducati's are also VERY fussy bikes - and most mechanics have a VERY hard time with DESMO valvegear. Certainly the Harley (and Buell) I had was probably the simplest bike to maintain I've had. The Ducatis probably the most irritating to maintain. It is a HUGE mindset change for the distribution network. One is all Aesthetics - the other is all about Performance.

IME of various market sectors - Most US companies TOTALLY underestimate the radical differences in expectation twixt US and EU customers and financial/contractual conditions. They also HUGELY underestimate the difference twixt English Speakers and the rest. The reverse is NOT as true.

 

[cusso ken]

Yup...agreed...shovels by far sound the best of ANY Harley engine. With all due respect unless I misunderstood your post the 1994 engines were the Evolution's. Their production was from 1984-1999 and then the Twin Cam was introduced.

Sorry mistyped the date 1984 was the last and best Shovel engine Harley, alternator ,5 speed,belt drive ,rubber mounted engine , when I bought mine the Evos were on the show room floor,I still have mine in running condition and have been offered $12000 for it by a collector as it is the la

st FXRS but its a keeper too many memories .

 

[1K9]

The shovel sounds the best. Straight piped it has a metallic blast to it. Now the prettiest of the HD twins is the pan head.

 

[cootertwo]

One Harley "line" that will work well with Ducati. "Yes, they all make that noise" !!!!!!!

 

[barbagris]

A quote from a mate who I passed, at close to full chat, on Thursday. "F*ck me - that's loud". But Duc's resonate nicely.

 

[sijtwin]

It means they will have noisy clutches as well as obnoxiously loud exhausts

Does this mean that Harleys could be made in Italy? Didn’t HD did say recently about moving some production to get around tariffs?