Too expensive, too few on the road.
They should have priced it as cheap as possible and flooded the market with them. Still nobody would particularly respect them, but if everybody and there cousin was riding one it wouldn't matter.
Give it time. I know a lot of the 'kids' around my workplace are can't wait to get their CB/R3 and Ninjas paid off so they can go get their Harley. They don't care what the heavy HD riders thing, they will never associate or ride with them. They see a premium brand, no-impossible price and a whole lot of cool compared to a Rebel 500.
Remember, the bearded pirate isn't the target market. HD wants the same hipsters and a younger generation that are buying Ducati scramblers and Yamaha Bolts -- they don't care about the brand's history -- only it's cache.
You know how many Harley Street's they have in our Kingston local Harley dealership showroom right now -> zero
You can't sell it if you don't show it.
... oh and no, it's not because they had a big run on them and ran out of inventory.
You know how many Harley Street's they have in our Kingston local Harley dealership showroom right now -> zero
You can't sell it if you don't show it.
... oh and no, it's not because they had a big run on them and ran out of inventory.
A guy in my office just bought a Street 500 last week as his first bike after talking about buying a bike for 2 years. I didn't have the heart to tell him he could've done much better!
But at least I get to look at a rare bike every day.
That vid is just his opinion. I like the Street series bikes, but they're physically small, as though they're built for a woman, and they're pricey relative to everything else. You can get an 883 Sportster for not much more and own a legend. Sportsters are all over the second hand market too. The Street bikes had big boots to fill, and it's true that the build quality is lower than traditional HDs. Still they do sell to the younger people, and the ones I met who own one love them.
That vid is just his opinion. I like the Street series bikes, but they're physically small,e that the build quality is lower than traditional HDs. Still they do sell to the younger people, and the ones I met who own one love them.
Have you ridden one? They are trash. The front brakes are questionable at the very best. I had to squeeze the lever all the way to the bar for them to do anything at all. Lots of reviews online commenting on how the brakes fail to do anything if they are used going down long hills etc.
Suspension is meh.
Welds are definitively ugly.
The motor is the only thing that surprised me. Peppier than expected.
Harley hasn’t found it’s way to be modern while embracing it’s heritage.
Triumph offers modern machines as well as retro offerings and they are not cheap. Huge triple powered cruisers, low twin bobbers, street fighters, sport touring, scrambler, retro cruisers etc.
They could have just made retro Bonnie’s and called it a day. They didn’t
Indian has some “entry” machines that have excellent engine performance and attractive styling. The touring models rely on their past but, are super attractive. Mind you, they vanished for a long time before resurrection.
Harley has to reinvent itself without vanishing. It’s not a easy task.
Indian doesn’t have the legacy of AMF or afterwards holding it back. They could just start from scratch and create interesting machines to fill a void HD and others couldn’t fill and leveraging their brand in the process.
HD can bring exciting and modern machines to the market. They don’t have to rely solely on dirt track and sportsters/touring bat wings.
They shouldn’t try to be something they are not. By offering cheap, entry level machines with small margins and where the Japanese dominate isn’t the place to make inroads.
Build a liquid cooled sportster that competes agains the Scout in terms of performance and looks. Scrap more of soft tail models and give the touring models a make over like Honda has done with the Goldwing.
They should sell the motors in a crate and have those sitting on the showroom floor too. Catch the impulse buyers,
but they need to get real with the price list first, stop selling it as a high priced H-D and just start selling them as what they are, a cheap starter built bike with a nostalgia fuel tank.
"embracing it’s heritage" you made me vomit in my mouth just a tiny bit there. Start selling motorcycles and forget about the image nonsense.
If memory serves I bought my 83 650 Nighthawk from dealer in 85 for $1800 so $1450 seemed low for an 84 500 Ascot new out the door. They were $2300 US msrp and a US dollar was worth about $1.30 something Canadian at that time, so maybe more like $3000 Canadian. Think that was also around the time the US was nailing Japanese bikes with tarrifs, but only 750cc and above hence the US Nighthawk S being 700cc in USA and 750cc here. So $3000 Canadian add Canadian inflation rate from 84-2019 of 117.26% and we are talking more like $6517 Canadian today. 2019 Canadian pricing of Street 500 is $7000, same ballpark. My curiosity satisfied. All that said, I had a loaner of a 750 HD Street for a day last summer and it did not excite me, but did get me everywhere I wanted to go that day.
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