The news that the Buell Motorcycles name would return from the shadows of the motorcycle industry has certainly stirred the two-wheel world . The American brand was not without its rabid fans, but it garnered plenty of detractors as well over the course of its history, and through its various incarnations.
Never quite at home inside the Harley-Davidson family, the Buell Motorcycle Company was shuttered in October 2009. Not one to quit though, Erik Buell continued the company’s ideals in another self-branded endeavor: Erik Buell Racing.
This startup would be short-lived though, bringing only two models to market, in its roughly five-year run. Despite being unshackled from Harley-Davidson, EBR foundered in the marketplace, and floundered on the race track.
At the conclusion of both of these separate ventures, there was Liquid Asset Partners – a Michigan-based company that makes its business from buying the assets of bankrupt companies and flipping them to buyers for a profit.
But for Bill Melvin (the CEO of LAP), the motorcycle brands of Buell and EBR were not business as usual.
At the end of EBR’s road under Erik Buell’s management, LAP continued its operations, albeit in a very limited manner, assembling motorcycles from the plethora of parts LAP had acquired in the bankruptcy proceedings, and selling them to EBR’s remaining enthusiastic customers.
When the chance came to buy the Buell name from Harley-Davidson, LAP didn’t hesitate. The two estranged motorcycle companies of Erik Buell could now merge under one roof, and Buell Motorcycles was born again.
The New Buell Looks A Lot Like the Old Buell
The plan going forward for Buell Motorcycles is an ambitious one, with Melvin stating that he hopes to have 10 models available by 2024, built off four different engine platforms.
Upping the ante, and piquing our interest, there is talk of motorcycles on the cards that have always been outside the scope of the original business entities, namely electric models and a dirt bike.
To jumpstart things though, the first three models will look very familiar, as they are the three models that were announced during the EBR chapter of this story: the 1190RX superbike, 1190SX streetfighter, and the 1190AX.
The first two of those three are known quantities, as they were brought fully to market, but the 1190AX is a little bit more of an unknown.
Buell Motorcycles is showcasing the bike’s rendered form on its website (surely product of the IP that LAP purchased after EBR’s collapse), and we know the model was to be an adventure bike of sorts.
Judging from the look of the 1190AX, and knowing that it is built off the same 1190cc v-twin engine as the other two models, we can assume that the Buell 1190AX will be a continuation of the thought that gave us the Buell Ulysses over a decade.
This would make the 1190AX more of an upright sport-tourer than an adventure bike, and even Melvin himself calls the bike a “Super Tourer” – which seems to confirm our theory.
What is interesting is that Melvin is touting that the bike will compete with the Ducati Multistrada V4. Bold words considering the glowing reviews that are coming from the Italian’s debut.
I am expecting 180hp power claims, 17″ wheels fore and aft, and a continuation of EBR’s rudimentary electronics.
Depending on pricing and positioning, this could be an interesting motorcycle from Buell. But, it could also easily fall into the same traps that doomed the 1190RX and 1190SX offerings.
A Pythian Prophecy
“All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.”
In many ways, Erik Buell Racing failed for the same reasons that Buell Motorcycles failed under Harley-Davidson’s ownership.
In its restart, EBR failed to understand truly why its motorcycles failed in the marketplace, and I put the blame for tht squarely on the shoulders of Erik Buell himself.
Beholden to the sacred cows of his sketchpad, Buell’s innovations were both what set apart this American motorcycle company from its competition, and also what hamstrung its bikes on the dealer showroom floors.
The Greek tragedy of mistakes that has always been Buell Motorcycles played out in its fullest with the EBR 1190RX and EBR 1190SX models.
Free now from the influence of Harley-Davidson, the favorite scapegoat of the Buellisti around the world, Erik Buell Racing was to be Erik Buell at his finest – finally capable of delivering the bikes he wanted to create, and doing so his own way. They still failed.
I could write volumes about the fool’s errand that was the ZTL perimeter braking system on these 180hp sport bikes; how fuel-in-frame designs aren’t new, and something that the industry moved on from them decades before; or how mass centralization and under-slung exhausts weren’t not concepts born out of Buell’s imagination.
But the fact is, these EBR models failed for the simple reason that they did not hold a candle to their competitors when compared on the merits.
They were inferior bikes, sold at a premium price, from a brand that played to sentiment, not substance.
Some Unsolicited Advice for the New Buell
Considering that the 1190RX and 1190SX are the models that put Erik Buell Racing out of business, it is a worrying start to the new Buell that these will be the first machines to come from this reborn brand.
Quality and performance issues aside, the real point of pain for the EBR 1190 models were their price tags, which put them in competition with potent premium superbike offerings from Aprilia, BMW, and Ducati.
While EBR made plenty of mistakes at a product level with these models, those Buellisms could perhaps have been forgiven had the price tag been more palatable.
If Buell is really going to dust off these models from the EBR era, then Melvin and his team need to get aggressive on the price tag.
In a world where $14,000 can buy you a very capable Suzuki GSX-R1000, Buell Motorcycles needs to make an even bigger value statement than its Japanese competitors, and that is going to be tough to do with an already outdated product.
But, presumably since LAP bought EBR’s parts and assembly line for pennies on the dollar, this should be a goal that can be achievable, though it creates its own new and interesting problem for Buell’s reintroduction to the motorcycle market.
For better or worse, perceptions matter, and the rebirth of Buell Motorcycles with tired motorcycles from the company’s awkward and weird past isn’t exactly something that puts the brand’s best foot forward…and Buell really does need to put its best foot forward.
This isn’t just with consumers, of which there is no shortage of brand-detractors, but also with dealers.
It was with the motorcycle dealerships that Erik Buell Racing truly failed, repeating the same mistake that arguably put Buell Motorcycles out of business as well.
If you can’t build, support, and sell a top-tier motorcycle dealership network, then you can’t succeed in the American motorcycle industry. Brands live and die in the US with their dealership networks. Ask Energica. Ask Zero. Ask MV Agusta.
Having and building buy-in at the dealership level should be goal #1 for the new Buell, and that means bringing good products to market, supporting the pre-sales and after-sales processes, and above-all-else making sure that Buell is a profitable undertaking – in both the short-term and long-term visions of the brand.
That seems like a tall-order from a first-time motorcycle industry CEO, but Melvin and his team can start with selling dealers on a clear reason why they should forget the missteps from the Buell’s of the past, and delineate the brand and company he is going to build.
This includes the notion that Buell Motorcycles needs to understand that being built in America and being an American motorcycle brand, while romantic notions, are not enough by itself to move units.
The first incarnation of Buell Motorcycles grew so heavily from the vine of Harley-Davidson, that it pawned the patriotism of its riders for a wild relationship with quirky machines.
This happened because Harley-Davidson hoped that the Buell brand’s Americana would resonate with a rider who felt uneasy in a street bike market that was dominated by Japanese and European offerings.
While the Americana that surrounded and guarded the Harley-Davidson name from its metric competitors worked for the Bar & Shield brand, the riders that Buell Motorcycles was going after were more difficult to persuade.
While the metric cruiser brands had to sell you on a reason not to join the Harley-Davidson club, Buell had to do the opposite and convince a metric-focused street bike segment why this American brand was a better mousetrap.
The problem grew only larger with Erik Buell Racing, which built its business upon the hyper-competitive realm of superbikes. What EBR failed to understand was that the superbike market was sold largely on the merits, not geography, of its bikes.
It wasn’t enough that EBR built a true American superbike, they also had to build an American superbike that could hold its own on the race track with the best from the other brands around the world. The results in WorldSBK tell the story of tape on that measurement.
At the end of the day, the “Made in America” is a boomer way of thinking that died in the 1980’s. Americans ended up buying Japanese cars after all, and now no one blinks twice at buying a $1,000 iPhone that is made in China.
As we have seen with Harley-Davidson’s rapid sales decline, the grasp that the baby boomers hold on the motorcycle industry is slipping. Motorcycling belongs to a new generation rider, the brands that adapt to this will survive, the ones that don’t will perish.
So while the concept that there is a new American motorcycle brand on the market is a powerful one, if there is one thing that Melvin and his team need to understand going forward, it is that being built in America is the feather in the cap, to building a great product first.
Time will tell if this is a lesson finally learned by the keeper of the Buell name.
The Greater Fool
In economics, there is this concept of the greater fool. The idea is that something’s value isn’t necessarily tied to its intrinsic value, but instead by the desire of someone else to buy it.
That is to say, you buy an investment with the hope that at a later date someone else will value it more and want it more than your original purchase price.
As the name suggests, the connotation behind someone being the greater fool is a negative one. A greater fool is a patzi – a greater fool is a chump.
The Great Recession was led by greater fools, each valuing these junk financing packages higher than they were worth, so that someone else would be left holding the bag when the closing bell rang.
The result was our economy collapsing (and taking about half of the motorcycle industry with it). Greater fools are the people who are willing to play a game of financial musical chairs, when the seats are already taken and the music has already stopped.
Make no mistake though, our country was founded by greater fools.
Our founding fathers were the people who were willing to take the risk that no one else could stomach, defying the largest superpower in the world to start a nation of their own. They bet big, and hoped for the reward of a self-governance and a destiny of their own.
The American dream is also a concept built upon the backs of greater fools. Great moments in life, not just business, are defined by greater fools. And without risk, there is no progress. If you can dare to dream, then you can dare to achieve it.
While this story outlines in no shortage of ways how I think the rebirth of the Buell Motorcycle brand is a foolish endeavor, let it not be said that I don’t have an appreciation for the greater fools in the motorcycle industry.
Erik Buell is an easy name that comes to mind when talking about motorcycling’s greater fools. His unique and crazy approaches to designing and building a motorcycle merit that moniker.
Soichiro Honda, John Britten, and Michael Czysz are other names that come to my mind, and there are many others.
Maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising that in an industry that is centered around risk-taking, we have no shortage of personalities that are willing to gamble big (which is why it surprises me so often how conservative the rest of the industry can be at times). We have no shortage of greater fools.
Add Bill Melvin and his team to that list of greater fools. I can’t think of anyone else who would have the stones to try and raise the Buell Motorcycles name out of the ashes, especially at this juncture of time.
The mountain ahead for Melvin, LAP, and Buell Motorcycles is beyond Everest in size. The road will be difficult, if not impassable, and the voices of the naysayers will echo around them – of which I am sure mine will join the chorus.
I have no doubt that the people involved in the new Buell Motorcycles know these simple facts, and yet, they persist. There is something admirable in that.
We should all envy those who are capable of being so intrepid. We should all covet being considered the greater fool.
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