Originally Posted by
toxicf16
I'm not suggesting it would be an all or nothing endeavor, but yes, I do think whether he wanted to or not, he should have built something like that. The market segment for those is larger, as evidenced by the 100k+ XBs sold over barely 6 years of production. As we saw, the market for higher priced/horsepower bikes wasn't sufficient to keep EBR afloat. I can't tell you the number of posts I've seen on other forums saying they wanted something with less for less. I clearly shared a portion of Erik's vision because I got the 1190, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.
And yes, I know Erik wanted HD to build this type of bike for a long time. If you look at the Barracuda articles (which I'm sure you have) the 1190 might as well be the same damn thing with IMHO a better front/rear end. And therin lies part of the problem. If the 1190/Barracuda had come out almost 20 years ago when he came up with the concept, I suspect we wouldn't be wondering if EBR was out of business because EBR never would have existed. Buell would have truly been a sportbike market leader with this design on that timeline. But it didn't and unfortunately it wasn't. So here we are, lamenting the business failure of a visionary inventor whose products most of us refuse to let go.
My main confusion is how he was able to take part of his IP to build the 1190, but not able to take it all/more to be able to supply parts for older Buell bikes. HD doesn't really seem to want to support the existing fleet. I've got to scrounge ebay for takeoff parts for my Uly and Firebolt. I just think EBR would have stood a better chance of success if they could have had additional revenue streams as discussed, perhaps partially as a parts supplier.
But why stop there? Who's to say they only would have made parts for Buells? If they had been successful with that, they could have expanded to make parts for other makes as well. Erik and his team are clearly able to take existing designs and enhance them. Just thoughts.