Factory Stylists Mining Custom Bike Show for New Ideas
Harley’s top designers scope out Ride Every Day event, where the bond of custom is strong.
Perhaps no company is more in tune with the desires of its customers than Harley-Davidson, which is doubly surprising given its 115-year age. While many makers of bikes and cars send out their concept vehicles to shows to gauge what people want, the motor company does things differently. At this year’s Ride Every Day custom bike show at Destination Daytona (at the motor speedway), a whole crew of the people from the design side of the company came out to look.
The company crew poured over all of the customs, both old and new, looking for cool innovations and styles they could incorporate into next year’s bikes, parts, accessories and gear. In conjunction with the demo day, the custom bike owners and builders also got to sample the latest factory efforts. VP of styling Brad Richards wasn’t the only factory big wig there.
Senior product manager Kevin Hintz was excited to see just what direction the bagger customizers have taken. Is there any end to the longer, lower, flashier bagger style?
Product manager Michael Spaeth was impressed at how the custom bike builders could take a modern Harley with EFI and ABS, and spin it into a passing replica of the cruisers made famous in the 1950s.
David Latz is also in product planning, and he was there to connect to their customers and try to feel out and spot where the style, trends and market are heading, so they can meet customer need.
Take a few minutes out of your day, and spend some time in Daytona with some of the coolest recent customs. Who knows, one of these bikes may be the inspiration for the next CVO Road Glide, or Pro Street Breakout.
