What is the secret to Harley-Davidson's mass-market success and why has Indian been the only brand to make a dent and lodge itself in the mind of the American rider? Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about Harley-Davidson and Indian and what makes these bikes so successful here and around the world. Bring the thunder...
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Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
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00:00Welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, Editor-in-Chief. I'm with Kevin Cameron, our Technical Editor, legendary in the motorcycle business.
00:09Today we're talking about Harley-Davidson's and Indians and why cruisers really are the mass motorcycle market in America.
00:20Why are there millions and millions and millions of baggers?
00:24Not kidding. There really truly are.
00:26Since 2003, the classic Sportster, the air-cooled Sportster, sold something on the order of $1.2 million, just from the redo in 2003 with the rubber mounting.
00:42The peak of the motorcycle market in the United States in relatively recent times was 2006-2007.
00:52Harley-Davidson sold something on the order of $350,000 bikes that year, $370,000.
01:00And the peak around that time for Sportsters was about $70,000 units in one year.
01:08And baggers, which, you know, they're not all $20,000 to $30,000, but certainly they're not inexpensive.
01:17And they just sell and sell.
01:20So we're here to kind of look at that phenomenon.
01:25One thing, I think I'd kind of like to lay the groundwork.
01:28But, Kevin, do you want to say hi?
01:31I don't want to talk for five minutes.
01:34Five minutes uninterrupted.
01:36No.
01:36Well, I just, I've always seen this, even though when I was, say, 12 or 15 years old, it was still possible to find an old .45 that you could buy for $50, whereas now those things are gold.
01:59And so I think that, if anything, the whole process has intensified.
02:07And Harley-Davidson and their, initially at least, their trusty ad agency in Minneapolis, they didn't say you meet the nicest people.
02:19What they said was, it's not a technical device.
02:24It's a lifestyle.
02:25And I think that that was a super penetrating observation on their part.
02:32I think that was a brilliant piece of work.
02:36Because Harley management had gone in the technology direction.
02:43They imagined that their V4 designed offshore was going to compete with Japanese products.
02:53And I think that people who weren't immersed in the brand realized that flexible manufacturing and all that other stuff was just running wild in Japan.
03:06And that if you wanted to poke that bear with a sharp stick, you might not like the result.
03:13So what those fellows said was, Harley-Davidson, wake up.
03:21You have something that no one else has.
03:24You have an ironclad, and I use that metal advisedly, hold on what is basically Americanism.
03:37There is a nationalist fervor about Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
03:43And people who ride them in other countries, notably Japan, are not just riding them because they're big and go blug, blug, blug, but because they're American.
03:54So this just, it was a revolution, and it worked very well for Harley-Davidson, and it continues to work for them because they address how people actually feel.
04:09Well, that's, yeah, look, sound, and feel has been the stock and trade there.
04:15They're highly technical in the background, maintaining that feeling, serving that feeling, all the work for emissions and rideability and cooling and more power, all the things that they do remain encapsulated in that feeling.
04:34And that feeling, where does part of that come from, generational loyalty?
04:40That's the thing, formulating a loyalty for a brand and a feeling and an experience for a brand.
04:47Your great-grandfather rode a Harley.
04:50Maybe he rode one in the war.
04:52Your grandfather, et cetera.
04:53They've been around, and the imprinting of that sound, A, it's a great sound.
04:58Like, you know, it seems the 45-degree V-twin seems to speak to us in a way that also the 90-degree V-twin.
05:08There's something about the cadence and the space between the beats and then the knot space between the beats.
05:15And, you know, we're going after the potato-potato sound.
05:19We're protecting that in court, in fact, because it is so important.
05:23But that generational loyalty, and that's what, you know, I think, observing the cruiser market, the motorcycle market, over the last, you know, 30 years plus, what you've seen is Harley-Davidson winning on a non-technical basis.
05:41Absolutely.
05:41Like, a Sportster sells, an air-cooled Sportster from 2003 to the last model that they sold, more than a million units on an entirely not-technical basis.
05:56Yeah.
05:56I mean, they're good motorcycles.
05:58They're fun.
05:59They make a certain sound, you know, and the exhaust ports didn't move.
06:04The intake ports basically didn't move.
06:12The exhaust ports didn't move.
06:14The intakes didn't move.
06:16The aftermarket was massive, and you had a motorcycle that they made in many, many variations that the customer could then also make in many, many variations.
06:29And the same with the big twins.
06:30You know, we're going after that same thing, that same look, sound, and feel, with all that technicality in the background.
06:37And I think it's very interesting to me to see a company like Harley-Davidson move in the technical direction, like, let's get into adventure bikes.
06:50You know, let's do the REV MAX.
06:52And they seem to do that with relative ease.
06:55I thought that was very praiseworthy.
06:58Praiseworthy.
06:59Well, it...
06:59Those machines just came on the market, and they got excellent reviews, and so far, so good.
07:07Well, I think it was almost like...
07:09It's always been a really technically-oriented company, and there are road racers all over it, and off-road enthusiasts.
07:18People, you know, the people who just love motorcycling.
07:20It's not, you know, it's not just a bunch of guys in old T-shirts riding the Sturgis every year.
07:24It's much broader than that, the enthusiasm.
07:27There's race engineers, and of course, you know, bagger racing is a real powerful expression of the technical background of that company.
07:37And I suspect it's still springtime in terms of that class.
07:40We don't know where that's going.
07:42Yeah, but it was so interesting to me, you know, basically, Harley-Davidson put most other cruiser makers out of business.
07:52You know, the Japanese built some pretty cool cruisers and good running bikes, and they all, you know, they worked pretty hard at it.
07:59But, you know, the number of large-bore American-style cruisers that are being sold from not Indian and not Harley is really small.
08:08They kind of put them out of business.
08:10And it's so interesting to me from a company perspective that you would expand your business into a technical market like adventure touring.
08:20Well, I think they had finally evolved away from the way they told me in the spring of 66 that they trained their engineers.
08:34They said, we like to get young men who have done well in high school drafting courses and put them to work drawing our product.
08:49And after 10 years or so, when they show that they've got the flair for the way we like to do things, they get some responsible jobs.
09:00Now, it's not like that anymore.
09:05And the big change was the Evo engine, which was, it had a specific goal, which was to overcome the loss of brand reputation that occurred during the AMF years.
09:19When an older design encountered high-speed modern highways, and the result was noise, oil leaks, blown head gaskets, and other calamities that simply could not be tolerated.
09:36No amount of market loyalty was going to overcome that.
09:42And I remember in that period being at Aspen Craze up at Lake George and hearing a man on a gold wing saying, well, yeah, I might like to ride a Harley again, but they're going to have to clean up their act some before I can do that.
10:02You make a really important point, and it's a point that I make with any manufacturer who will listen to me.
10:10Not that I'm the ending expert on it, but it always goes back to the motorcycle.
10:16You can say whatever you want about it, but the fundamental goodness and the core qualities have to be expressed in the product.
10:23You can't just market it into existence.
10:26Well, that was what England took from their investigation of American methods.
10:35They thought that promotion could sell anything, and they thought that managers could manage anything.
10:45They didn't have to know anything about the product.
10:48In fact, it was better if they didn't.
10:51It was said in so many words.
10:53And I remember going to those rah-rah meetings that Triumph put on that just sounded like the millennium was a-coming.
11:03It was an old-time revival meeting spirit, and it simply didn't work because they weren't making what you described, a satisfactory product.
11:17What does it do?
11:22The successful product satisfies the self-image of the buyer and the attendant experience.
11:34And I think, you know, the trap, the trap is, the trap for other manufacturers is Harley-Davidson sells, you know, they're sort of 180,000 units now.
11:47They're still in the, you know, I don't know, three to five billion, somewhere in that range of revenue.
11:53And every manufacturer looks at that and says, man, if we could just get 10%, like at the peak, if you were looking at 2006, 2007, and 350,000 units, man, what if we just got 10% of that?
12:10Wow, that'd be amazing.
12:12But you have companies like Ducati, like the Diavel, what a, I mean, what a fantastic motorcycle, really interesting design, and a very, very fun riding experience.
12:24And it's, you know, it's inspired by American cruisers, and they're looking to get a percentage of that market.
12:31And they struggle to make the numbers that Italy wants, because I don't know that they've ever just gone to Iowa for a month and gone to, gone to B-Twin rallies, gone to a Harley rally.
12:43Because how does it satisfy the mass American market's self-image, when your self-image is tied to, you know, like, do we have to dress like Keith Richards?
12:58No.
12:58Pirates?
12:58No.
12:59I mean, but there's a sense of style and a feeling.
13:03That's the thing.
13:04Like, choppers, you could, you can malign choppers for being terrible motorcycles, and a lot of times they are.
13:10But, you can also design a pretty good chopper, you know, there's a guy, Sugar Bear, who was making front ends that had, that actually paid attention to geometry.
13:19And so, you could have this massive rake, but you could have steering that wasn't completely suicidal.
13:24I mean, fine, but jockey shift and all that other stuff.
13:28And people are like, why, why would you even ride that?
13:30Like, what a terrible motorcycle, what a piece of, you know, and, you know, there's a feeling associated with it.
13:38And, you know, it echoes through the entire V-Twin experience.
13:45All those custom bikes inform your feeling about riding the stock bike.
13:52It has the sound, and it inspires you.
13:55And I think, you know, the American customer, we're still a love market, right?
13:59The first thing that happens with a motorcycle is love.
14:02And everything else is a secondary or tertiary or 13th on the list, a justification for having it.
14:09Oh, you know what?
14:10It does get good mileage, doesn't it?
14:12Oh, I can get to work faster.
14:13Oh, you know, there's, hey, babe, we can ride this together, or this bike's for you, or, you know, whatever.
14:19All of that stuff, but it starts with love.
14:22And if you don't have the love, like, where do you go?
14:25And the love is also, like, you have that generational loyalty, but also that self-image and that feeling.
14:32Like, you know, there's the accessory that's sort of bubbled up around here in Southern California is the bedroll, right?
14:40And it's an accessory.
14:41Like, once it was, you know, there are plenty of guys still doing that, but you go and you see a perfectly clean blanket tied to the front of a dinah at your local biker hangout.
14:51And it's not that we are going to, you know, ride free or die.
14:57It's not that we are all going to live off our panhead and go camping and just live on the road and, you know, whatever.
15:05It's not that we're going to ride our adventure bike to Alaska, and it's not that we're going to set the lap record at Laguna Seca.
15:11But we sure like to think we could.
15:15And that love and that feeling of self-image is how other manufacturers, they fall into the trap.
15:25I mean, the BMW R18 is a beautiful cruiser.
15:29It is beautifully made in a very specific riding box.
15:33It's fun to ride, but it's so cruiser that it doesn't have some of the flexibility that's actually in the Harley product.
15:43And their grandfather didn't have that bike.
15:47It doesn't culturally resonate with the mass market.
15:50Well, we used to see a kind of ceremony when we had the Triumph dealership.
16:02Several fellows would come in, maybe two or three of them.
16:06We knew them.
16:07They were customers.
16:08And they had someone with them we hadn't seen.
16:11And they would go over to a bike talking among themselves, maybe a single carburetor 650.
16:18I don't know what I don't recall.
16:20But they would stand around the bike talking.
16:25And at a point, one of them would say to the new boy, why don't you get on it?
16:31See how you like it.
16:32And we would notice after these sessions that the rearview mirrors were adjusted so that the rider could see himself.
16:44And he would sit on there and you could see that he was going through this transition of, well, that belongs to somebody else.
16:54I mustn't touch it to this could be mine.
16:58I've bagged enough groceries to pay cash for this.
17:04And it was it was a group immersion in motorcycling.
17:11And soon that young man would be would own a new Triumph motorcycle.
17:17And I think that's a that's a powerful thing.
17:21But Triumph messed with their own identity because they imagined they could compete with Honda by installing computers and American style management.
17:36And they came out with the oil and frame models and guys would come in and say, can can I get those, you know, the mufflers like they used to have?
17:46I really like those mufflers.
17:48No, they're not available.
17:50Do you have to have them shiny fork bottles?
17:54I like the ones that are, you know, painted black because that's the way a Triumph looked.
18:01That's what they wanted to buy was that identity.
18:06And yet we've seen manufacturer after manufacturer mess with it at their peril.
18:13Yeah, well, the audience, the owners, the current owners are your greatest asset in terms of, you know, we could call it marketing, but it's not marketing.
18:24It's proselytizing, right?
18:25You're you're living in experience and you're demonstrating that experience.
18:30And if the market is big, like Harley, that experience is is everywhere.
18:34It echoes everywhere.
18:36It echoes in movies, you know, I mean, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s and watching chips and all these TV shows, there were a lot of criminals on motorcycles.
18:47But they loved using dirt bikes and making like two stroke sounds for four strokes and four stroke sounds for two strokes and just all the all the horrors.
18:56But, you know, that is particularly into the 80s, the image of freedom and all the the showings of of riding B-twins to, you know, to be free is is really powerful.
19:11And it's there's millions of them around.
19:13There's just millions of them go to go to Wisconsin, go to Iowa, go to California, go to Maine.
19:20They're just everywhere.
19:21Well, the the durability of their look has its origins way back before World War One, because motorcycles were the cheapest motorized transportation you could buy.
19:39And so motorcycle sales were very strong before World War One, which began in 1914 in Europe and the U.S. joined in 1917.
19:49But at that time, America had its own oil fields, Texas, Pennsylvania, et cetera.
20:00And so fuel was fuel was cheap.
20:03So engines could be large in Europe.
20:06All the fuel was imported.
20:08It was expensive.
20:09So the emphasis was on getting all the performance possible from the smallest engine and the lightest motorcycle.
20:17Conditions in the U.S., mostly dirt roads, a lot of farm roads, a lot of pounding, rigid frames, large section, squashy rear tires provided the only suspension other than the seat springs.
20:34And that became the American motorcycle.
20:40And then, of course, after the war, there was a boom.
20:44But it didn't affect motorcycles because in 1913, Henry Ford came out with his Model T and it took the whole transportation market.
20:55Leaving motorcycles to athletic young men and police forces, so those were the markets they had to deal with when the Depression started in 1929.
21:10And the remarkable thing is that when the Depression started to ease up, Harley-Davidson did a remarkable thing.
21:19They built their first production overhead valve motorcycle as a completely modern design.
21:28And that design has been modified and elaborated ever since.
21:36We're still selling knuckleheads.
21:38Yes.
21:38Still, essentially.
21:40We're drawing that line from the rear axle, that straight, beautiful line, all the way up to the steering head.
21:46It's still there.
21:46That's what a soft tail is.
21:49We're still drawing that line.
21:51We still have the V in there.
21:52But that motorcycle was a technically advanced design because they couldn't afford to fail.
22:04So it had Harley-Davidson's first pumped recirculating oil system.
22:10And aside from making sure that all the parts get lubricated, such a system also tends to level the temperatures inside an engine.
22:24And that would shortly include the cylinder heads, which are the hottest part.
22:29So you will see from that beginning in 1936, through all the steps of all the substantial updates in the Big Twin that have occurred since then, with a lot of little changes made between those steps,
22:50a continued theme of improving the cooling, increasing the durability of parts, and increasing power to keep up with the rising quality of American highways.
23:07And it was a Harley-Davidson specialist in Harley Iron Motors who made that point to me very forcefully.
23:16And I think it's an excellent one, that Harleys had to increase in power and deal with the greater heat that power produced by improving cooling steadily since 1936.
23:32And it's still going on today because we see that the classic designs are cooling the hot parts, like between the two exhaust valves of the new eight valves.
23:46With liquid.
23:49And riders are putting up with having those bathroom heaters in front of their knees to guarantee that they can get from one side of Death Valley to the other with zero problems.
24:03And it wasn't always so.
24:06Cars and trucks are moving faster on the highways now.
24:09They're just, rush hour is a mad contrast between lock-up.
24:16Zero motion.
24:18Two minutes later, you're doing 90 miles an hour to keep up with traffic.
24:22And on ramps and passing, these motorcycles are big and substantial.
24:29To keep up with that traffic, they're constantly making the engines bigger.
24:34As they get the heat problems under control, they're able to raise the compression ratio, which boosts torque at all RPM.
24:43Compression is wonderful if you have the means to deal with it.
24:48And Harley-Davidson have mastered all of the technology that they need to accomplish these goals.
24:56Yeah, there is a big change in, say, the last 20 years for the Harley-Davidson Touring bike.
25:04And also, I want to talk about Victory in Indian shortly.
25:08But one thing I've noticed from testing motorcycles for a long time is the really technically competent motorcycles can be rushed.
25:21So, you can take a Yamaha MT-07 to a photo shoot and whip it back and forth.
25:30Quick shifting, double downshifts, brake slide hackers, do the U-turn, get the photo, do the wheelie, do whatever.
25:36You can just go back and forth.
25:37You can go like, man, I got to get down this road.
25:40And you just rip down the road.
25:41It charged the corners.
25:42You do all this stuff.
25:43You shift fast.
25:44You do all these things.
25:44And the motorcycle doesn't know.
25:47It doesn't care.
25:47It doesn't change.
25:48It just does what it's doing.
25:50And, you know, 20 years ago, if you rushed a Harley Touring bike, the gearbox was going to tell you something.
25:57The brakes were not really up to task.
25:59The suspension, not so much.
26:0208, when they changed the Touring line, they updated the frame.
26:06They did a ton of work on them there.
26:08And they got rid of the, mostly got rid of the wiggle.
26:12You're still rubber mounted, but you, there was always a concerted wiggle in a corner on a Harley Touring bike that if you pushed it a little hard, it would start to kind of go, uh, uh, uh, and any more you can get on, you know, um, you can get on any new bagger and just, just whip it, you know, do any of the soft tails, just hammer them and they just don't care.
26:36And, uh, it's a, it's a big, big difference.
26:39And, and, you know, it is here in Southern California, you're looking at easily 80, 85 miles an hour, uh, on any freeway that, that there isn't a traffic jam.
26:49Sure.
26:50And it's no problem.
26:51Just click it in.
26:52And if you want to go faster, get the 135 and.
26:57Technically competent motorcycle.
26:59Watch the scenery blur, the crate motor, the 135 cubic inch crate motor.
27:04It's amazing.
27:05And you can just bolt that in.
27:07Um, generational loyalty, victory motorcycles came out.
27:15Um, I want to say it was 4th of July.
27:17Uh, was that 1994?
27:20Or, um, Polaris launches victory.
27:24They're looking at the, the big twin cruiser market and, you know, for, for a time they had the new American motorcycle, et cetera.
27:32Um, technically competent company and started building pretty good motorcycles and they got a lot better.
27:41And victory, victory was moving along pretty good 15 years after, uh, you know, after it had been launched.
27:50Yep.
27:51But they were struggling to make 10,000 units, you know, to sell 10,000 units.
27:57And when.
27:58Far from that 10%.
27:59Right.
28:00And so what's, you know, what's the mystery?
28:03Well, my grandparents, you know, my grandfather didn't have a victory.
28:07So you might like the bike, but you don't have necessarily a generational or spiritual connection to it.
28:12And you don't see them around that much.
28:14It's a neat alternative.
28:15Um, they worked pretty hard to sell them and they got to a certain point.
28:21And then Polaris, you know, intelligently saw the Indian name available for purchase and bought it.
28:28I'll have that.
28:29Well, you know, and you have that generational loyalty and you have all those Indian, uh, cues, all those visual cues.
28:38They did a beautiful job, you know, relaunching the brand, paying homage to the flathead, the, basically the, you know, the 53 chief putting the, putting the swoopy fenders on it and, and designing a modern overhead valve.
28:52The one 11, uh, thundershow, a modern, you know, heat shedding thing that, you know, looks, looks flatheadish and that echoes the, the history of the brand.
29:04And then the first year of having Indian Polaris doubled motorcycle sales.
29:10Yeah.
29:10And it was just, that was it.
29:13And so then when you look at, well, we need a new engine, are we going to put victory on that?
29:19Are we going to spend $20 million or whatever it takes to build a new power plant, to, to forge the brand ahead for 10 years, to be the power train for 10 to 15 years or whatever you're planning on.
29:29And, and we're going to get this dollar back, but what if we could get $3 back or $4 back on that investment?
29:38And that was, that was the business decision to say like, yep, we're going all in on Indian.
29:44And that's a generational loyalty.
29:46Like it, you know, they have a, they respected the brand.
29:49They connected themselves to the history.
29:51They did technically everything, you know, that you should do to treat, treat the brand with the respect that it deserves.
30:02And then they used all of that experience, making a technically good product, but it finally clicked into a self image that someone had about riding a big twin.
30:14And I went out to Bonneville to see them Indian people go for a record.
30:24And they had a number of executives there who rode in on those very large bikes with the, with the waffle iron heads.
30:35And I noticed that one of the bikes had, was painted a kind of pale green cream color.
30:46That was the same as my uncle's 1948 Buick.
30:51And it attracted me.
30:54Now that's not an accident.
30:57Those guys did their studying.
30:59They studied that because in marketing courses that are trying to be effective, one of the most effective things you can do is to find out what part of your product is already resident in the customer's brain and speak to it.
31:22Wake it up and start a conversation, as they say nowadays.
31:27Well, I was impressed with that pale green cream color, which awakened an emotion because my sister, my cousin, and myself would jump into that car.
31:41My uncle would drive us to the swimming pool, even though he'd arrived in the middle of the night and was dead tired.
31:48He would say, keep me awake, shout, do something crazy.
31:52Keep me awake.
31:53And we'd go swimming.
31:54And there would that car be waiting to take us home again.
31:59Lovely thing.
32:00Yeah.
32:00Peter Egan tells a story about buying his Road King.
32:03He bought a Road King.
32:04I think, I think it was an 09.
32:08And, you know, he's, Peter Egan has to be one of the richest motorcycle customers.
32:16I don't mean, I mean, rich in experience.
32:19Rich in experience, yes.
32:20You know, he never, he never called the manufacturer and was like, hey, could I get a deal on or whatever?
32:26He just, he's lived the experience.
32:28He's authentic.
32:28And that's why, you know, that's why Peter is who he is.
32:31He's, he's authentic.
32:32And he said, you know, he would go to the Harley dealership and he would hang around and he would talk to the guys and he would go to the, you know, he'd go to the local Triumph dealership and the Honda.
32:41And he just, you know, he'd go see Lyle Cher down at the Triumph, you know, and he'd see all his friends.
32:47And he said he went into the Harley dealership and he looked at this kind of, it's like, it was like a, a burgundy, you know, this beautiful wine color.
32:56And it had all the, all the deep chrome.
32:58I mean, if, if you want to know a big part of Harley Davidson's success, it's fostering and partnering the supply chain that can make the chrome that does what chrome is supposed to do.
33:09That can make the paint that does what paint's supposed to be, that has the depth and has the sheen, all those services, textures, colors, contrast, cut, fins, you name it.
33:19All of that stuff feeds into that beast.
33:23And because Carly had such a, has such a volume suppliers really are motivated to do the job for them and to give them all those colors and textures and that variety.
33:34So you, you know, you, you, you, Harley's business model has been so great because it's like, here's the base unit and we can make all of these different things.
33:44Here's the touring model and it's, it's an ultra it's, you know, grandma and grandpa going on a tour.
33:50It's the bagger, it's the slammed bagger with very little rear suspension travel to get the look.
33:57It's the long suspension travel for the comfortable touring bike and it's every color and texture.
34:02And you see, man, you see the jukebox versions, right?
34:06Where it's, it's Springer front ends and it's candy colors and it's all those things.
34:11And that clicks in, as you said, it resonates with something that's already in you.
34:16Then you have this whole blacked out, uh, satin finish, you know, I'm tough, I'm quiet.
34:22I'm the classic American hero.
34:24Right.
34:25And you can just keep doing that.
34:27You can, you know, there's like a panger version, beach bar version, all these things.
34:34And they just iterate on that and heart anyway, going back to Peter, Peter walked in and he, you know, he was not shopping for a Harley, but he looked at that bike in the burgundy color with the chrome.
34:49And it was the new touring version.
34:50So the chassis was updated.
34:52It still had the straight cut fifth gear, which, which made a whining sound that they went helical on, I think in 10 and 2010.
34:59Um, anyway, he said, I had to have it.
35:03I had to have it.
35:05And that is how it works.
35:07Like that fundamentally, that's how it works.
35:11I had to have it.
35:11It, it evokes that feeling.
35:14And whether I'm, you know, if it's a sport bike, I want to set a lap record at Laguna, I want to ride, ride to Alaska on my adventure bike, or I have this vision of myself feeling great rolling down the highway.
35:28And I know how I look because I have been imprinted with, and memories of the coolest people riding by.
35:36Not everybody looks great on a Harley, but you forget about the ones you don't like and you remember the ones you do.
35:41And that's how you look.
35:43That's why we all wanted to look like Don Cane, man.
35:45Don Cane has perfect style on a bike.
35:48It's beautiful.
35:48And he leans more than anyone.
35:51Like he can, he can take a bike to the very limit and drag fairing panels.
35:56You know, it's just amazing.
35:57And we envision ourselves that way.
36:00And that's, that's it.
36:01Peter had to have that motorcycle.
36:03And that's that variety of silhouette and color and texture and all the things expressing, being expressed in the product that resonate with us and our self-image.
36:15Yes.
36:16You know, you look at some of the early Diablo, Ducati Diablo marketing materials, and the bike looks great.
36:24The finishes are great.
36:25It's, it's got all the Ducati sounds, trellis frame, big beefy tires, and tailpipes, and all the stuff.
36:33It's got that great 11 degree motor that they-
36:3511 degrees, yes.
36:37The very short overlap.
36:38So massive torque right off the bottom.
36:41You could just hit that thing and go.
36:43And then they have this like beautiful Italian boy in a super tight leather jacket with a silk scarf.
36:48And, you know, we don't, I have, I have not seen that guy in Iowa ever.
36:54No, and I wouldn't confuse him with Teddy Roosevelt either.
36:58Right.
36:58And it's, it's just a, you know, it's just a different vision, right?
37:02It's just a different vision of, of what's going on.
37:06So it's, you know, I got to have it.
37:11Yes.
37:11It fits my self-image and it's been imprinted.
37:13And it's no bad thing that the sound of the engine reminds you of a P-47 that has just been started up.
37:25Sure.
37:26And they're going to taxi out to the head of the strip.
37:29I tell you what, if, if I'm, if I'm working at product planning in Indian and, or I'm working at product planning in Harley Davidson, I'm going to go to EAA.
37:40I'm going to go to Oshkosh.
37:42Yes.
37:43And I'm going to look at Cessna 195s.
37:47I'm going to look at Art, I'm going to look at Art Deco aircraft and radial aircraft engines because it's, we're still taking that feeling with us.
37:56My dad took me with him to New York in 1947 or 48 and we flew on a Convair 240 and boarding that airplane.
38:11You look at the engine, you look at the engine on your side and it has these, these beautifully curved fins covering it everywhere.
38:21And the engine, it's shape reproduces the shape of what is inside.
38:30It is shrink wrapped.
38:32The cases and the other parts are shrink wrapped onto the functional parts so that those, the shape of those parts is revealed to your eye.
38:42And I feel that this, this is, this is real stylists haven't poured heavy cream on this.
38:51It's, it's beautiful in a way that I find irresistible.
38:56And the fellows at, at Victory said, well, you're not going to like this thing because, because I had told them that I believed that this shrink wrapped functional look was essential.
39:11But when they built their engine, the stylists were allowed a pretty free hand and it looked like Soviet realism of the 1920s with skyscrapers presented as jutting out at angles.
39:27And it just didn't resonate with me.
39:31But I think Harley Davidson, when you, when you read the chronology, you see fin depth increased to one inch.
39:41Or oil circulation increased by a larger oil pump.
39:46And you know that these are symptomatic of gradually increasing power and the opportunity to ride faster and longer, which creates more problems with heat.
39:59So I feel that the whole story is very authentic because if it weren't, they wouldn't work right.
40:11And they've been working right for, for a good long time now.
40:15There was a time, the AMF years and before that.
40:19But again, those problems had a technical origin.
40:24Why did the gaskets leak?
40:26Not because the gaskets weren't good, but because
40:29the cylinders were base bolted, there was very little springiness in those bolts.
40:36So when the parts expanded as they got hot, fasteners were stretched permanently so that when it cooled down, there was less preload on the gasket.
40:49And that process went on until it leaked.
40:51And that's why the Evo has through studs.
40:56You should explain that so that we, you know, we have a short, you have a short thing that's like an inch long.
41:01It doesn't have the opportunity.
41:03It doesn't have the opportunity to have any, not any, but it has little elasticity.
41:09But if you make the bolt or a stud nice and long, you have the ability to stretch and you have some flexibility and you have a, let's say, a more constant clamping force over a temperature range.
41:23The long fastener can stand the stretching without yielding.
41:30Yeah.
41:31Take it, look at it this way.
41:3210% of this or 10% of this.
41:35Absolutely.
41:36Right.
41:36That's the story.
41:37And that's why that decision was made for Evo.
41:41And that's also why the Evo has a short exhaust port.
41:46Because, among others, Harry Ricardo observed that half of the heat taken up from combustion by the cylinder head comes in through the walls of the exhaust port.
42:00Because the conditions for heat transfer are tremendous, extremely high velocity, very high temperature.
42:08I got to say, when you say that, I have to say Jim Fueling.
42:13And now Jim Fueling made an entire career doing many, many, many creative things.
42:18He did.
42:19But he built a career on making exhaust ports as short and as small in diameter as would be able to accommodate flow.
42:30Yep.
42:32Keeping the heat from going into the head.
42:34He did it.
42:35He did it for Harley more than once, helping them get the heat.
42:40He had the science of it.
42:42The pioneer before him was Jocko Johnson.
42:46I answered the phone one evening and the voice said, hi, this is Jocko Johnson.
42:53And I thought, Hot Rod Magazine in the 1960s.
42:58What Jocko Johnson did was, he looked at a Mopar cylinder head exhaust port and he said, the roof of the port was all these parallel lines.
43:12He said, you could just imagine the flow just rushing past there.
43:16Then they looked down at the floor of the port and it's all these little swirls.
43:20It reminds you of the eddies where a stream makes a corner.
43:24And he said, nothing happening down there.
43:26I'm going to fill that in.
43:29And then he would raise the top of the port.
43:31And that's where we get raised and brazed.
43:34The raised and brazed exhaust port was worth four tenths of a second in the quarter mile, which is an incredibly large chunk in drag racing.
43:45And of course, he made the port smaller.
43:50And Jim Fueling realized, I could sell this to Detroit because those guys don't have a clue.
43:56And he went to, he described to me being in a boardroom with the people who had hired him and seated at a table and all turned to look at him, the row of engineers.
44:08Many of them from prestigious offshore universities.
44:13And the big man turns to Fueling and says, our engineers tell us that your plans to alter our cylinder head do not lie on the line of best practice.
44:28Tact and diplomacy.
44:30Tact and diplomacy.
44:31Tact and diplomacy.
44:31Tact and diplomacy.
44:32Tact and diplomacy.
44:32Tact and diplomacy.
44:34Tact and diplomacy.
44:34How do we deliver this message without alienating?
44:38Actually delivering it.
44:40Well, Fueling then said, it comes down to a question of which you would rather include in your engine.
44:48The superior performance that you have yourselves measured in the parts designed, as I suggested, or the curve of best practice.
45:01Well, I thought it was wonderful.
45:03Yep.
45:05Well, if we're going to be authentic, you got to pay attention to the truth.
45:12Stick to the truth.
45:13Yes, sir.
45:13Yep.
45:14An alternative reality is a hard thing to maintain.
45:20Yep.
45:21But it's a good time to say the reason that big twins are the American motorcycle market is because it suits the bulk of our riding desires.
45:33It has a generational impact on our psychology, our family life, our social life, our living.
45:40They really suit what we want to do in a bulk way, and they evoke our dreams in a way that…
45:48America is big.
45:50Yep.
45:50The roads are long.
45:52Europe is small.
45:54The roads are winding.
45:56Yep.
45:57These differences are built in.
45:59America has the legend of the man alone, the high plains drifter, etc.
46:06He don't say much, but don't mess with him.
46:09Yeah.
46:09We see in the advertisement, Harley Davidson parked in the light of evening under a streetlight, and in the background is a defunct factory.
46:26There's no person in the image.
46:28Is the rider in that factory?
46:33If so, what is he doing there?
46:36We don't know, but something adventurous for sure.
46:41Oh, come on.
46:41We're all going to eat.
46:43But that's the image.
46:45That's one of the images that I see in advertising over and over is a presentation of a motorcycle with an industrial building.
46:55Yep.
46:55We're getting stuff done.
46:58Yeah.
46:59Well, you know what I love?
47:00We're going to finish on…
47:01I love that the bagger silhouette and the thirst for performance and big block power and all those things that are happening has been extended into Moto America road racing.
47:17And it's resonating with a huge audience outside of normal road racing audience.
47:23It's a beautiful outreach marketing play.
47:27People who love racing, you know, hey, we've seen your comments.
47:30Some of you don't like it.
47:31But more people like it than don't.
47:33A lot more people like it than don't.
47:35And I think what a beautiful way to extend the image of American riding and that we, you know, in America, what do we do?
47:45We will race anything.
47:48Yes.
47:49And this stands as proof.
47:50Yes, I agree.
47:53Thanks for listening, everybody.
47:56Hit us in the comments.
47:58Let us know what you think of this episode, what you think of Harley-Davidson and Indian versus other companies building big bore cruisers for the American market and the American mind.
48:09We call them metric cruisers.
48:11We do.
48:11You know, like, we appreciate your support here.
48:17We've watched podcasts grow.
48:19We're really glad to have you along for the ride.
48:22And we'll see you next week.
48:25You bet.