Yea, there was an "anonymous" post on Badweb yesterday that said the announcement was incorrect and there'd be no AX reveal at the AIMExpo.
It's gonna be at least a year before I'm ready to buy, so I've really got nothing to complain about. It will be interesting to see what they do bring to AIMExpo; I'd guess we'll at least see the Hero lineup for the US and maybe some minor changes in the RX and SX 2015 models.
Considering their size and the fact that they're just getting started, it makes sense to focus on refining the RX and SX. It would be great if an updated RX could incorporate some changes to make it more competitive. Who knows, maybe a more affordable new RS could help them compete (imagine if they could price a new RS at about $25,000 - they might be able to sell enough at that price to meet homologation requirements).Originally Posted by Hughlysses
Yea, they recently revised the homolgation requirements too; only 125 units have to be produced: http://www.crash.net/wsbk/news/20052...gulations.html
Interesting. So let's imagine that, hypothetically, they've identified some key engine components that have been breaking under extreme conditions and/or preventing the engine from revving high enough. If they could replace those components with exotic, titanium parts, for example, and make some other modifications (such as going more oversquare) to get 20% more power out of the same basic engine design, they could incorporate that into an 1190RR (using that designation just to avoid confusion with previous models). Assuming the exotic parts add $5000 - $7000 per bike, they could afford to price it in the ballpark of $25,000.
And according to those limits, they'd have to make 125 bikes prior to the start of the 2015 season (that shouldn't be much of a hurdle) and then an additional 125 throughout the season (again, not much of a hurdle - we're talking numbers that aren't that much higher than the 1190RS and with a lower price and more established dealers, I wouldn't anticipate any problem selling that many).
Then they'd have to make 750 in 2016. By then, we'd hope they'd be up and running and cranking out thousands of bikes, so I think that's doable. If I were running EBR, I think that's the direction I'd be going.
Of course if they did something like that, the 'RR' would look almost identical to the RX, so it wouldn't be anything amazing to see at AIM, but it would be cool if they did something like that.
I think, as much as we're curious and want the AX, it's more important for EBR to get their feet firmly under themselves and improve their racing results than it is for them to introduce an all-new model.
Last edited by Scott; 09-17-2014 at 09:14 AM.
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