I suspect many of you feel similar to me in that I've pretty much given up. It seems like Buell/EBR is a thing of the past and we may never see an American Sport-bike again.
But there are forces that seem like they should work in favor of a new EBR at some point.
For one thing, LAP right now is sitting on an asset that they believe is worth $500,000 plus. Whatever you may think of LAP, they're not stupid, they don't throw money away and they know the motorcycle industry.
If they can't sell that EBR IP, there's a good chance they'll end up losing money on the whole thing, and I doubt they expect to come out of this losing money.
And with recent rumors that both Harley and Polaris/Indian were interested in buying Ducati, it seems absolutely crazy that they wouldn't also be considering buying EBR.
Sure, Ducati is a very different company with a rich heritage, but if both Harley and Polaris think the future is bright for Ducati and the kind of bikes they make, why not invest a tiny fraction of what it would cost to buy Ducati and buy EBR?
EBR has a bike that's nearly there. With a little work (and information that was learned from the racing program) I have no doubt either Harley or Polaris (or some other company) could refine the EBR design to make it more competitive on the race-track. Then invest another tiny fraction of that Ducati money into a serious MotoAmerica race team.
Win a few races and that improved EBR bike could easily sell for $20,000 and then somebody has the genesis for an "American Ducati".
It seems to make too much sense for somebody to not risk the relatively small capital it would take. But it's not my money and the people who do have the money obviously aren't doing that.
I can assure you that if I win the lottery, the first call I'll make will be to LAP.