Re: The modern engine predicament and...great job
Yeah, you're right. I thought about that, too. Once you get used to it, there's something very endearing about that motor. The tourque is enormous and, once the revs climb a little, it really does smooth out and feel very cool. Totally different than my daily inline-four experience. And that IS one of the things I grew to really like about the bike.
Lest anyone be confused, this bike in no way feels like a Sportster. Except maybe when you're watching the front wheel bob around at idle.
I did ask myself if I would like it as much, or more, if it had a more mainstream, high tech engine. The answer is probably. I do think Buell has enough new-think engineering, not to mention styling, to continue to stand on their "different" positioning. And because the motor continues to be the source of most of the critisism, a new one would most certainly open the door to mainstream acceptance. Will they lose some of their core audience? Maybe. But what will they gain?
Stand-out-from-the-pack looks, stunningly different engineering, excellent chassis, reliability (hopefully), American-made AND a top-flight motor. How many do you think they'd sell? Even a premium price?
I think I know the answer to that one. I'd be saving my pennies and wouldn't carp one bit about the price.
We must also remember that there is a percieved value to things. This is very important to people when they go to purchase something, even if that value brings no measurable functional advantage. For sportbike buyers this is especially true. People are willing to pay for a Ducati, for example, because, aside from exclusivity and beauty, there is a percieved technical excellence built into each one. We imagine a team of engineers in Italy sifting though hundreds of exotic materials, making millions of calculations, poring over reams of computer designs until they get the optimum combination of finely developed parts. The designs are then handed over to master builders, who painstakingly hand assemble at least the first few prototypes. The bikes are tested and measured in every parameter known. Then, voila! An exotic sporting motorcyle is born.
Now, consider the imagery associated with Eric Buell's motorcycle: This guy from Wisconsin had a few cool ideas how to build a sport motorcycle. Unfortunately, the big wigs bankrolling the operation are more interested in selling 1950's-style cruisers, so they won't give him the money to develop a new, advanced engine to go along with his impressive chassis. So, he goes to plan B, which is to take an essentially 1940's engine architecture and redesign it. And voila! We have some sort of half-baked, developmentally-disabled, idiot-savant motorcycle.
(By the way, much of this may not be true. But we THINK it is.)
The question is, for 90% of all riders out there, is the first really a functionally better motorcyle than the second?
I'm not so sure it is. And even if the first is a functionally better bike, who's to say many people still woudn't enjoy the second better? I think we all lose sight of the fact that most of us will never line up on the starting grid next to Valentino Rossi. Or Ross Valentino--dry cleaner by weekday, club racer on Sunday--for that matter.
The problem, from a sales and acceptance standpoint, is that the Buell is so different, people, including yours truly, have trouble getting their heads and hearts wrapped around the idea of a cutting-edge chassis carring an old-tech motor. It doesn't compute. There is no percieved advantage to using such a lump--even if there may be some very tangible real world advantages. And I think I can now say that there are some indeed.
Interesting, ain't it?
(P.S.: Buell can never use an outsourced engine. It would do tremendous damage to their brand. They're trying to build an new-think engineering image. To go somewhere else for a motor would be mean admitting defeat and destroying that image. Whatever is developed has to be done in-house, or at least it needs to give that impression.)