EBR Motorcycles is closing its doors…again. Yes, you heard that right. America’s superbike brand will be winding down its production operations, starting next week, and is looking for a strategic investor to takeover the brand.
Liquid Asset Partners (LAP) attributes its decision to shutdown EBR Motorcycles to the company’s difficulty to secure new dealerships, and thus increase sales. As a result, LAP says that its production volume for 2016 and 2017 was below expectations.
The company then finishes its explanation for closing EBR Motorcycles with the following line: “the combination of slow sales and industry announcements of other major OEM brands closing or cutting production only magnified the challenges faced by EBR.”
Whether you believe that line of reasoning or not, the result is the same, Erik Buell’s motorcycle brand once again has a dim future.
Of course, this news is not surprising to anyone who has been watching EBR Motorcycles with clear eyes.
There has always been the expectation in the industry that Liquid Asset Partners would unload and/or closedown EBR once it had assembled and cleared out the company’s remaining unsold units. Today seemingly being that point in time.
To its credit, EBR Motorcycles says that it will honor its warranties, while also providing technical and parts support to dealers and riders who bought bikes from the company.
That statement is an interesting one though, as it is unlikely to apply to very many machines that bear the EBR logo. Similarly, if LAP shuts down EBR Motorcycles completely, its liabilities to dealers and customers would be moot.
The question now of course is whether this is the final chapter of the Erik Buell story, or if there will be another company taking up the quill and writing new chapters. Time will tell.
Source: EBR Motorcycles
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