As I believe Mark Twain once famously said, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” and likewise the decline of Harley Davidson, because of one reason or another, may be grist for another news story but how much is true and how much simply tantalizing speculation?
Harley Davidson, like any other company, has a customer base with certain similarities, in their similar taste in bikes if nothing else. But the story now being promoted is the male baby boomers are aging enough, the first wave moving into their sixties, that buying a new Harley may not on their list of things to do. News stories suggest hip and knee replacements are pervasive and make you think once you hit sixty, the whole world falls apart. (I think a few of those writers haven’t been paying attention to the advances in health recently)
Obviously, most sixty plus riders aren’t going to be putting their knees down unless they’re changing their oil, but is that a problem for HD? That sounds like the huge baby boom generation won’t be buying sportbikes as often but you can ride a big Harley just as well as a Gold Wing and I don’t see any suggestions of Honda losing touring bike sales in an aging market. Some older riders will eventually stop riding and younger riders will pick it up. But, still, is this aging market a problem?
It could be if you focus on serving only the male, primarily white, baby boomer market but recently Harley has been trying to attract more women riders, just like all of the other companies and motorcycle accessory manufacturers, too. Everyone seems to be coming out with riding gear aimed specifically at women, which is a good thing as comments we’ve received indicate, and they’ve also been looking to ethnic markets where HD has been a bit weak. Blacks and Hispanics are not seen as often in the Harley crowd and HD wants to change that. This is exactly like the auto manufacturers who are more recently targeting cars and trucks to those groups.
Harley has promoted a “Harley Davidson lifestyle” for a long time, a semi fictional series of images that play in the minds of potential customers to get them to walk into the local HD dealer so they can join in. Does this lifestyle fit the needs or desires of the groups they want to attract? Probably not without a little tweak here and there or even some major revisions and maybe that’s what they need to do. Maybe there isn’t one story or image that will appeal to enough customers to keep things going and they may have to diversify that image to fit smaller groups. Someone interested in the urban biker scene is unlikely to find a Harley to his liking which is where some Buell derivation might fit. The Vrod family is more likely to attract the drag racing or horsepower and performance crowd. The big Harley Touring rigs always have a market for long range riders and the softail or FXR models appeal more to the chopper or custom type of customer.
Although Honda used to have their “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” campaign many years ago, no one tries to fit everyone into a Honda lifestyle because there isn’t one. Honda covers all the bases and as a result sells a lot of bikes. Harley can appeal to most of those same riders, too, as long as they don’t try to force a “one size fits all” strategy on those riders.
Harley may have to adapt in the future but not simply because their primary market is aging but because there are fewer homogenous markets for anything anymore and if you think about it that way, all companies have the same worry, not just Harley. I expect to see Harley around for a long time, not quite the same Harley we’ve seen over the years maybe, but they’ll be around, nevertheless.
A few more thoughts: Harley’s recent decisions to push into China may be an example of the “one size fits all” strategy instead of targeting groups with focused products. The Harley lifestyle in China? The market is changing for everyone and trying to do more of what you did before because it worked here so it will have to work there, too, isn’t thinking long term and ignores your potential customers. Hard as it may be for Harley to admit, not everyone wants to be an American Harley rider, China has no movie history like “The Wild One” and “Easy Rider” and no Sturgis or Bike Week. Dropping big chrome V twins on their market may just result in a dull thud when they hit. Looking at the huge number of Chinese people doesn’t mean they’re going to be HD customers. The HD appeal here in the US has to change and developing those other target markets in this country may make it easier to sell Harleys worldwide.
Reuters
The Kneeslider: Motorcycle Design for Baby Boomer Riders
The Kneeslider: What Do Women Motorcyclists Want?
Rob Feightner says
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aaron says
the harley will continue to appeal to some, because it “1.is grossly overpriced. 2. is technologically obsolete. 3. does not incorporate innovative styles and designs” parallels? Rolex, Dunhill, nascar, etc. any successful brand is consistant and desirable. to the uninitiated, anything that is grossly overpriced and still sells must be high quality. obsolete? with a 14,000 rpm multicylinder sportbike as it’s core business harley would fail. honda, yamaha etc make a lot of money selling overweight Vtwins too… no innovative styles and designs? everyone knows what a harley looks like. say honda, and many people will think car, lawnmower, outboard, etc. even those that think of a bike may not picture anything like what is on the market now. going back to nascar and rolex, do you think fans would stick around if the cars became lemans prototypes overnight? do you think rolex ignoring the digital watch movement in the 70’s was a bad idea?
blahblahblah, this was meant to be a short post.
bottom line: working in a nightclub 8 years ago (or so), line up 100 drunk young people and ask them what bike they want…90 will say harley. uneducated people with money will work wonders for the bottom line, and patriotism combined with the world’s biggest bike market (over 250cc, anyways) can’t hurt either. tastes change, and you can’t stay on top forever. I guess harley could buy a stylish, racy italian motorcycle company and use their expertise to build bikes to appeal to the young folk… only they already tried that, and where are the sporting harleys now? (gone, just like aermacchi.)
Rob Feightner says
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aaron says
I meant uneducated consumers, not uneducated people. a high percentage of clubgoers are students, and at $8 a drink, they’ve got money, too. not arguing (much) with the aging demographic thing, but if gm stayed with comfortrable, reliable big cars that were VISIBLY DIFFERENT from the japanese competitors, they might not have problems they do…(see chrysler 300!) and jumping on trends with an uncertain future (putting big SUV’s at the top of the priority list for 2006-2010) won’t help them much either!
more to the point, the CSC rider training has a a sportster, buell blasts, a bmw scarver, klr 650 as current model traffic rides. the sportster is taken pretty quick, and the harley dealer does well to have donated it to the school, with several students (typically females, 30ish) buying one as the first new bike. (buells, much less so. virtually no one likes them)
and just a random guess here, but the number of 15 year old kids with OCC and WCC t-shirts will bode well for harley when these kids get old.
the big problem, as I see it, is the cruiser trend slowing (along with the whole retro thing-what will happen with the mustangs over the years? in 10 years will we be getting a retro mustang II? will a “new rabbit” replace the “new beetle”?) and harley not having any heritage left to peddle- once the aircooled mills can no longer meet emissions and noise regs, can you see a revolution engined softtail springer having a broad appeal? (well, I might like one when I get old…:) )
with a level cruiser playing field, and less buyers to share between companies, then what?
I agree with you on one thing – I would not buy any harley stock, unless I planned on the branded accessories being the big thing – and this may well be the case. though print magazines are going belly up left, right, and center, i’m guessing playboy is doing quite well off t-shirt sales!
kneeslider says
Rob, I have to take issue with your comment.
You seem to take quite a few shots at Harley Davidson for the “overpriced and obsolete” motorcycles they produce. That’s a pretty common shot from people who don’t like Harleys and simply reflects your opinion, but they weren’t selling to you to begin with. That’s the beauty of the market, you can sell your product to customers who like what you produce and not worry about the ones who don’t. If your target market shrinks, you find some other groups and show them how one or more of your products perform well satisfying their needs or desires. There are many cutting edge products I wouldn’t spend a nickel on yet find myself perfectly happy with older, essentially obsolete, models that I would buy again.
I found it a little puzzling that you say, “It would be fun to gloat over Harley-Davidsons problems.” Why is it fun to gloat over their problems? Does it make you feel better that a company whose products you don’t like isn’t doing well? Isn’t not buying their products enough? I don’t like to see any company do poorly, it hurts everyone associated with that company. I would much rather they find a way to succeed.
You go on and on about their “relics” and their “Nativist and Sexist Harley-Davidson ‘lifestyle’รขโฌย and then there is your really amazing statement: “Here in America, the land of misinformed mythology and Nativist nonsense, American-made monstrosities outsell modern machinery.” Then in your follow up comment you say, “The fact that they are overpriced and obsolete is more a cut at the demographic of aging baby boomers.” Wow! Rob, you’re an angry man. It seems anyone who doesn’t buy into your view of a product must be pretty deficient for missing your obviously elevated insights.
Harley isn’t a cutting edge technological marvel and last I checked they weren’t trying to be and furthermore there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You assume the young will never want to buy Harleys as the boomers age, you might be surprised on that one, and unless you dig yourself in too deep to ever entertain changing your mind without embarrassment, you might be surprised a few years down the road when you see what you choose to buy.
Rob, try to remember that you can prefer and purchase one product without having to hate the ones you don’t choose. You might find some companies inexplicably succeed because you don’t see how anyone could ever buy that other “relic” or “monstrosity” or whatever. Maybe others just like different things, there’s no conspiracy or stupidity involved, just free choice.
aaron says
oops, one more thing, a response to the post instead of the comments.
the absence of black harley riders may be a result of the average income of this demographic, too. check out the bikes owned by nba stars, and there’s a lot of choppers there. (true, not harley, but real escalades don’t resemble the custom shopped monsters these guys drive either…) as money is spread more evenly between all skin colours, the number of black harley riders may well rise.
from what i hear the most desired cars in the inner cities are “white old guy” staples like bentley, rolls, cadillacs and M-Bs, but the demographic of brand owners may not indicate this.
C. J. Luke, III says
Wow….got to jump in here ๐
I have a very good friend that has an attitude towards Harley much like Robs. But what I think they both fail to see is the market. If they weren’t selling to a desirable market, do you think all of the Japanese manufacturers would be spending the money to crack that same market place with their “Harley Look alikes”? For now at least, that market makes Harley a lot of money. They have worked with other companies to develop new engines (V-rod) and are working with Buell in what looks like an attempt to gain a foothold in the sport bike area. Will they be successful? That is the 64 dollar question and if you can forsee that, I suggest you entertain a career in the stock market ๐ As with any established company, they have a better chance than a start up, but I do think it will be a difficult road.
A good example in my mind is Triumph. They went out of business completely. A new person stepped up to the plate, bought the rights to the company and has a successful motorcycle company today. Yes, they make some ‘retro’ bikes, but that is not the mainstay of their product. They make some fine motorcycles in several of the catagories of bikes today. If the right people had made the right decisions in the first place, they wouldn’t have gone out of business.
I for one, don’t care for the motorcycles that Harley makes. It’s not a quality issue, it’s a style issue. But I wish them the best and hope they continue to be successful. If they ever do make a style of bike that appeals to me, I will give them serious consideration when shopping.
Rob Feightner says
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K-dog says
I dunno Rob, sounds like you’re pretty bitter. Data point for you, I’m in my mid 20’s, have owned a honda, and suziki, sure ’75, and ’93 models respectively, so definately ‘out of date’ but my harley has been quite good to me. I don’t need a track bike, but I love reading about the tech on this site. Why don’t you keep your posts, on your site?
๐
When it’s working of course.
K-dog says
oh, I forgot to mention that I’m white, but the people I ride with are pretty mixed, and black’s and hispanic’s are both well represented.
I don’t mean to be rude, but really you seem quite riled up and bitter.
hoyt says
In regard to H-Ds future success and anticipating the changing market:
1. Build a true sport-tourer built around the Revolution engine. One that fits exactly in the market with the Triumph Sprint, Honda VFR, Yam FJ, etc. This could be marketed as a collaborated effort with Buell for its “class-leading” handling.
The sport tourer or performance standard could be the models that outsell everything else in 10 years since there are loads of sportbike sales now. In comparison, HDs big jump in the 90s was largely because many of the baby boomers rode the early Sportsters or bench seat bikes 20 – 30 years earlier. Will all of today’s sportbike riders move to the feet forward mode or will they take to something closer to what they remember? e.g. sport tourers & performance standards.
2. engineer the air-cooled engine so it lasts longer than the nay-sayers. There is a great comparision in the current Motorcyclist issue between the top of the line Monster S4Rs (with the 999 liquid cooled engine) and the Monster air-cooled DS1000 engine. To me, the air cooled engine is far better for the street. Look at the torque curves of the 2 — there is more power EARLIER in the rev range on the S2R model….street performance.
3. what about a Buell with a big twin engine option in the longer wheelbase-ed version?
aaron says
after taking a few harleys out for a spin, I have to say I was impressed. seamless fuel injection, dead smooth engine, and the springer front end was quite good, with not much change to the geometry during braking (this could have been due to largely absent brakes, though). in my mind, the twincam B is a modern motor, just a little soft for my tastes.
of course, if you can tolerate ugly bikes, a bmw R1200ST will stomp the harley just about everywhere… now that’s a modern twin for the old folk. too bad most won’t get past the headlight’s appearance…
Bob Cowgill says
I’ve always referred to Harley as the “Blunt instrument on the cutting edge of technology”.
While this may still be the case when compared to nearly anything else on the non-retro market, the new ones ARE significantly better.
Having owned 5 of them (last one was a 2008 “Crossbones”) among my over 100 total bikes (spread over 45 years of riding), and now contemplating another one, I’d like to add something to the discussion.
1. Weight: The Harley I’m considering weighs nearly double what my ’08 Triumph T100 does. In fact, the Harley is much heavier than most of the “metric cruisers”, and there is a reason for that. A nearly 900 pound bike can be a handful at times!
Nearly any given part on the metric bike that is made from a stamped or molded piece of sheet metal or plastic is a copy of one on a Harley that is machined from a solid piece of metal: Solid metal weighs more (and usually lasts longer!) than stampings/moldings.
2. Durability: Even here in hot Florida, not the optimum environment for an air-cooled V-twin with cylinders inline, I personally know quite a few folks with Harleys sporting odometer readings approaching, or exceeding 100K miles that have never had any major engine or transmission work performed.
One of my co-workers has a early 1980’s FLT with 78K miles, and a neighbor had over 125 K miles on his Heritage Softtail before doing a top end overhaul.
3. Long term availability of replacement parts. Try going to your local (non-Harley) dealer and picking up a part for a 10 year old whatever and see how that goes for you!
I unloaded my former Triumph soon after finding that I had to mail-order even OIL FILTERS from out of state, and some other things I needed were no longer available.
With Harley, (and formerly with BMW) you can get from either the OEM source or the aftermarket ANYTHING you need for a VERY old bike.
The cruiser riding position and style will never appeal to everyone. I actually prefer the “standard” position, but bike choices are pretty limited for that market lately.
I do NOT buy a “lifestyle” when I buy a bike. I have never been, am not now, nor do I aspire to becoming a “biker”.
I am a “motorcycle enthusiast”, and will remain so until my aging “Boomer” bones will tolerate it no longer!
Bob