Going To the Show
Going to the Show
TDC
Kevin Cameron
WHY GO TO A MOTORCYCLE SHOW? Isn’t it just the sales brochures in 3D? Actually, it’s much more: You go for the people you meet and the fascinating conversations that follow.
I walked into the International Motorcycle Show in New York City and there was American Honda grand fromage Ray Blank talking to CW publisher Andy Leisner about the new NC700X Twin, whose two long-stroke cylinders incline forward at a distinctive 62 degrees.
“Some years back,” Blank was saying, “during the initial ‘NC’ model group proposal from Honda R&D, we were asked what we thought of the concept. We responded that for success, price, fhel economy and DCT would all be important elements but questioned if the need for a motorcycle like this really existed.
“Back then, we proffered a price under $6K as a necessary merit. Of course, the exchange rate was much more favorable, the world economy had not cavitated, raw materials hadn’t gone through the roof, and the U.S. on-road sales volume was almost a million units a year. Now, it’s less than half that. Kind of spooky how well they saw the future.” When I look at the NC700X, I think of Cold War intelligence officers, trying to find the real meaning behind diplomatic language. What do these features mean? There’s storage in what appears to be the gas tank; a hint of urban scooter utility. There’s a trellis frame; a bold element of Ducati’s success with its Monster. And the styling: very “NOW,” all sharp points and skinny triangles with peek-a-boo slots between.
But never mind. What Blank was saying is how Honda hopes to get sales moving again with a new kind of motorcycle. In 2005, 1.2 used bikes were sold for every new bike. But today, the ratio is four used bikes per new sale. Business is a little smaller, but it still reflects strong interest in motorcycles. What kind of new bike would people like? A lowpriced one (in 2005, dealers called an $8500 600 “entry-level!”). A fuel-economical one, because with all these new four-doors claiming 40 highway mpg, motorcycles have to do a lot better. They have to be re-optimized. Blank was saying 65 miles per U.S. gallon.
In WWII, the way to get maximum range from your airplane was to cut the revs down as far as possible to minimize mechanical friction loss, then “gear up” by pitching up the prop. The same works on pavement, so max revs on this NC is 6500 rpm. Blank was telling Leisner, “Prior to a conceptual overview, I rode an early prototype. It didn’t rev as I expected. The LPL told me, ‘Use the torque; don’t ride it like a 600RR.’ When I did that, it made sense.”
Is this the leading edge of some kind of new motorcycling? If you’d looked for something to define “sportbike” 40 years ago, you’d have been looking at a 350 Twin. I keep thinking of sporty 250 Singles, bikes that don’t dare you to catch up to what you’re riding. In fact, we have no idea what forms motorcycling will take in the future. In the years of UJM dominance, people laughed at the roadrace style, contemptuously calling it “café.” Then came Interceptors, Ninjas and GSXRs, making idiots of the pundits.
The night before the show, I attended a soiree down near the tip of Manhattan to sip the Moët and see/experience Ducati’s new “Cl” or Corporate Identity. I don’t know about you, but this kind of New Corpspeak doesn’t really “Sing my life with its song.”
But, okay, I can dig it. I saw dark gray half-meter square tiles on the floor, the walls partly covered by metallic panels (shades of the Guggenheim show!), partly by large-scale color or B&W graphics. The store window was part photo shoot, part performance art. Explainers told me the dark gray is the pavement and the action is the colorful bikes and other products on display
Mmm, didn’t Howard Johnson’s restaurants try to “standardize the customer experience” back in the late 1940s? Wherever we went, we’d find comforting sameness. Harley-Davidson did it, too, making the upper-middles comfy in something between a high-end car dealership and a boutique. No more hole-in-the-wall shops.
At the show, I talked with Dominique Cheraki, general manager of Ducati North America. When I asked him if “Streetfighter” is a liquid-cooled Monster, he put me straight with a story.
“Streetfighter is actually something real. In Northern Europe, when one of these motorcycle guys crashed his GSX-R, often he could’t afford new plastic and crash parts for it, so he rode it with flat bars and no plastic. People looked at these bikes and they liked the look. That is Streetfighter.”
I very much like to see new kinds of motorcycle arise, not from focus grouping but from how people live and actually use their bikes. This is going to be what I “take away” from my close encounter with Corporate Identity. In return, I told Cheraki the many ways in which Ducati appeals to me: the eye candy, the racing tradition, the style and the function.
I’d been keeping an eye on the nearby Victory display, where actual New Product was lurking under cover. Now, the covers were gone, so I walked over. External Relations Manager Robert Pandya explained that the new product— “Judge”—is inspired by hefty musclecar themes, leavened by the “coolness” of the 1970s (the original “Judge” was first a TV character, then a special 1969 Pontiac GTO). Instead of the Buick tires we expect to see under big-inch V-Twins, Judge has wheel sizes that permit gofaster rubber. Frosted burnt-orange paint. Number ovals, of all things—a whiff of dirt-track? It’s a big motorcycle but reduced to essentials. A “factory bobber.”
Highly effective as Victory company spokesperson has been actor and former Marine, R. Lee Ermey (“The Gunny”). Okay, I get it. A lifetime ago, it was easier to be a man. You got up, went to the plant, ran a screwgun or Bridgeport all day and brought home the bacon. Today, gender is harder to figure, employment harder to find. Who’s in charge? Anybody? The Judge and the Marine drill instructor have authority. Git yourself some!
The military theme is a natural for Polaris, whose off-road four-wheelers are air-droppable workhorses wherever U.S. forces are found.
Everywhere in the show, exhibitors were saying, “Sure! Go ahead and sit on it!” Matchmakers. We’re all hoping to get things moving again. Optimism. Spring is coming.
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