Ducati is light years ahead of HD in R&D even with their meager budget. Family runcompanies can be a little odd. If HD does buy Ducati it could be a good thing fo both if it's done right, and having a Motorcycle Company rather than a car company in control is a step in the right direction. Maybe HD has learned from their experiences with Buell and MV ?
If Harley buys Ducati and if every Harley dealer sells Ducati then Ducati will have many more dealers and will sell a lot more bikes than now. Harley has been able to stay in business since 1903 and must evolve or perish. Ducati could get younger riders in their showrooms to one day see the positive merits of Harley's big bikes. It seems that Harley dealers can refuse to promote another brand or brand labeled bike. Ducati should be more interesting for them.
The HD dealerships that I've been to would not have open arms to sell Ducati in my view. HD should come out with the electric bike they prototyped. HD should probably keep doing what they do best. Their core base may be aging, but there are younger riders who want a HD. Maybe develop a cafe that's a whole lot better than back in the day. Or, maybe no one knows what they should do, including themselves. I would not want to see Ducati owned by them. I don't feel that Ducati needs more dealers either. A local HD dealership took in BMW, gave them limited floor space and then several years later, bailed from the German marque. They did sell well, but you could tell that the owners were not really into anything other than the motor company. It reminds me of Steinway pianos. Steinway's biggest competitor are their own used pianos. So many used HD out there for sale.
The great thing about buying Ducati as opposed to the Buell experiment, with Ducati you get a ready made dealer network. You don't have to try and sell a sport bike in an HD dealership. This is where they went wrong with Buell!
Ducati would also benefit from this as they would have a company with money behind them.
I suspect that Harlee would screw up Ducati's dealer network bigly.
They insisted that Buell not be sold outside of the H-D dealerships where they weren't wanted by the majority of the dealers.
I can picture Hardley Dangerous doing the same thing with Ducati. The existing dealership network would cease to exist as they're brought into the H-D fold.
I suspect that Harlee would screw up Ducati's dealer network bigly.
They insisted that Buell not be sold outside of the H-D dealerships where they weren't wanted by the majority of the dealers.
I can picture Hardley Dangerous doing the same thing with Ducati. The existing dealership network would cease to exist as they're brought into the H-D fold.
I do not see HD doing that. That did not work with Buell. What is there that makes the think it would work with Ducati? Why dismantle a functional dealer network, just to waste money recreating it in the HD dealer network?
Yeah because they could not get the clean burning engine with the mileage and power they were advertising to people. If they could, they would have. Instead, cheating the system was far easier.
I doubt HD will shoehorn Ducs into their dealers, perhaps a few will chose to carry the brand, but it gets HD back in the hunt. Triumph and Duc have been taking younger riders, Indian is hurting them too, VAG is hurting from the fines and buy backs so it's win win for HD and VAG, if HD leaves well enough alone with Ducati, it's a win for them too.
I don't see what the emissions scandal has to do with anything.
Gabriel, you chimed in with a poorly considered remark about how Ducati will gain a backer with financial clout, having completely ignored the immense industrial and economic might of the Volkswagen group. After I pointed that out, you felt like you had a bit of egg on your face and are now trying to salvage your argument with non-sequiturs.
If I were to argue that a property mogul knows eff all squared about motorcycles, how well do you think it would go down?
Q.E.D.
And as for your bollocks about German quality, you clearly don't know what you're talking about and are quite content with dogmatic proclamations based on opinion and chauvinism.
And Caddillac vs BMW on the Nurburgring? Really? Go do some reading up, mate.
I am not the only car enthusiast to think they are unable to deliver a Diesel engine that is clean, gets good mileage, and good power.
Now you say they can (or someone did), well if that is true and get instead chose to cheat the system, then that means that VAG is a bunch of lazy individuals. That sounds far worse than being unable to deliver what was advertised.
You are 100% correct in stating that they didn't build an engine that could pass emissions, but perhaps less so in saying they couldn't. Manufacturing is a series of compromises between production costs and profit. Any engineer worth his degree wants to build the absolute best product they can, but the financial people have other motives. We've all read the stories about how the "bean counters" ruined Detroit.
I wasn't in the boardroom when VW made the decision to cheat. I assume you weren't either. Is it not entirely possible that the engineers proposed steps that would make the engine emissions compliant, but the accounting department poo-poo'd those changes with rafts of spreadsheets showing the impact on the bottom line and shareholders' dividends? Engineers being engineers said, "well...we could do this..." and harumphs echoed throughout the room.
My neighbor is a tradesman. He builds houses, and has a very large Ford van with whatever very large V-8 Ford puts in those things. Recently, it spit a spark plug. The place that fixed it told him it's a common problem with that engine. Apparently, the threads in the alloy head are something less than sufficiently strong to ensure the plugs stay where they are supposed to. The mechanic told my neighbor that Ford knows about the problem, but as yet has not redesigned the engine, or reformulated the alloy in the head to fix the problem. The mechanic was able to fix the problem using a technique some 80 year old codger taught him (Helicoils? :dunno), but Ford's only fix is to sell the customer a new engine.
Following your logic, I guess it could be said that Ford can't build an engine that won't shoot its spark plugs through the hood.
In my opinion Harley makes some pretty decent bikes for their intended clientele.
They have for many years owned about half of the larger cruiser market despite the best efforts of the big 4 to take control of that segment of the motorcycle business.
They do seem to have trouble adapting to other parts of the motorcycle market as shown by their takeover failures, especially with Buell. And Ducati has more Buell lineage than Harley similarities so it's a valid question as to whether Harley would have the ability to keep Ducati viable in the marketplace. Have they learned any lessons ?
If Harley feels the need to expand into somewhat different categories of bikes to perhaps increase their share of the younger biker market, it would seem that there might be other upstart companies they could reach out to -- Ducati might be of interest due to Harley having enough money to float a larger company like Ducati. However, possibly some more closely related motorcycle company would be a better fit if they feel they must expand outside their current market.
Hopefully both Harley and Ducati continue to survive and thrive whatever direction the two companies go.
.
I get to ride with lots of HD riders here in Texas. At breakfast last week around a table of 4 pair HD riders, 2 Triumph pairs the subject of A HD purchase of the Duc company had several of he hard core HD riders blasting coffee across the table from both mouth and nose. "Stupid,just stupid" one older gent screamed. These are the folks who denied that HD had a water cooled bike in the shops even though V Rod was on the side of them on show room floor. In the back of show room of course.
HD couldn't even come to grips with MV. Practically gave it back.
Bought a used V Rod once, took it to a Virginia HD shop for service. They couldn't be bothered. Took it to independent and was tickled on how great it ran. Loved that bike, dump truck didn't.
Point is HD mind set is in stone below bean counter level. Company board may think it is a great idea but rank and file only bleed orange and brown blood. Duc red would be the same as MV. In MHOP only.
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