I. With you, I’d watch this new model for a year and get in next year

 

It seems to me that this is the new order of things, ultimately increasing profit for Harley, significantly increasing the average sell price for a touring bike in general.

Standards: The new standard bikes have nice features, more tricked out than they were in the past, but thousands of dollars more expensive as well.

They just effectively killed the resale value of my (and everyone else's) '20 Street Glide Special, no doubt, BTW. Us newer Special owners lost many thousands of dollars when this new, nifty standard came out for '24. The Specials were relatively expensive bikes new that are now worth significantly less than a new standard, seems to me.

Specials: The "Special" designation has gone away, replaced by the "CVO" designation. Again, many thousands more expensive than the Specials used to be (and yes, more tricked out than a Special used to be). It looks like CVOs will no longer be few and far between, my dealer always got just a few CVOs and they were gone before you ever saw one on the floor. Now, I'm guessing these new "CVOs" will be all over the place, regularly stocked bikes, taking the place of the Specials of the past, in the general pecking order of things. It looks like they are already all over the place, in fact last fall those '23's were all over the place. In other words, no more exclusitivity / limited production for CVOs. The CVO designation will be used to help normalize the huge prices charged for these dressed up bikes, so they can sell us many thousands of CVOs every year at big prices instead of just a few exclusive bikes as was done in the past. I'm thinking they are expecting to sell CVOs now in place of the Specials, in volumes similar to the Specials. Many guys just won't ride "standards" and Harley knows this. Instead of treating yourself to a Special for $31K, you now have to spend $43K or more to be "special." "But it's a CVO." Or is it? What does that mean now?

Traditional "CVOs": My guess is that traditional CVOs as we know them, low volume limited production expensive "unique" bikes, crazy looking bikes in many cases, no longer will exist. Think about that new Pan America CVO - it's just an optioned up Pan America, not a very exclusive limited production hand painted "CVO" of the past as we knew them. That bike wouldn't even make sense as a Pan America, but an optioned up regular Pan America makes plenty of sense.

Has anyone officially heard that CVOs will now be produced in large numbers, where you can get one whenever you want and dealers can get almost as many as they want? I could be wrong but it seems that this is what is going on here. The Standards went up a few thousand in price, so more money for Harley there, and the "cool" bikes will be the high end CVO's, available to anyone who ponys up the money. It seems that the way they have the model line positioned now, those ST's and "standard" CVOs with VVT are expeted to be volume sellers, not just a few to each dealer. They want to sell many thousands of these bikes, in volume.

I'm convinced that's the big picture of what's going on here right now, they hit the reset button so to speak. CVOs going forward are like "Denali" pickups, they'll sell one to everyone, badged to say "I can pay more than you can" but not limited or exclusive (other than price).

 

If you priced out a base 2023 Street Glide and added on the ABS, RDRS, and surcharge, it landed at 25,049 and a Street Glide Special with RDRS and surcharge was 30,099. So the new Street Glide at 25,999 is basically a thousand more when equipped the same and you could say it is two thousand more as I suspect many did not buy one without RDRS. I am pretty sure neither of my two most frequented dealers ever brought in new bikes without ABS. Honestly for someone looking to get into the tour line this is their best opportunity for buying new or used.

Given the updates to styling but also that new display the impact on prior year was going to be big but its far worse because the new pricing is very attractive. To me they are finally priced more in line where they should have been. You think you have it rough, figure all the dealers whose used inventory value just took a huge hit but worse for most of them is that there were a lot of unsold 2023 Specials. Anyone trading in prior year Street Glide or Road Glide is just going to get soaked, dealers have no real reason to want those bikes. Anyone looking to buy a previous year bike is going to do damn well. Trading from Softail to new Street Glide or Road Glide should not be impacted unless you just have to have one now because the initial rush will probably see some dealers with heavy markups.

On a different note, if Indian dealers thought they has sales problems before they just got whacked hard as they are still rocking no substantial updates in years and their pricing is still at the level Harley had Specials.

 

To the best of my knowledge, no, Harley does not do mid-year releases.

 

All great points.

Excellent time to get into the HD touring line. Fresh new bike, lower price. If you're starting from scratch (or from a Dyna, Softail, Sportster, or a different brand), great opportunity.

And yes, I feel for the dealers with new and almost new inventory of Specials (and Standards from last year), the hit there is tremendous. We aren't seeing low $ numbers around here yet but they're going to need to come up with some low numbers if they ever want those bikes to go.

It's just a quadruple whammy situation, the new bike pushes all the typical buttons unlike we normally see. New, bigger number on the air cleaner with the 117, more power. New bigger screen infotainment system with improved sound quality (which is a whole different discussion for some other thread). New bodywork, instantly recognizable as a '24, from a half mile away. Improved suspension, something very welcome to any SG / RG owner. Lower price! The perfect storm for destroying the resale value of prior year bikes.

I guess it's all relative when you think about it. If the new Standards were $35K, I'd probably have to pay $10K to boot to trade in my '20 Special. With them at around $27-$28K equipped, I'll still have to pay around $10K to boot. Kind of the same either way I guess.

All in all it's definitely a good thing, guess we shouldn't be bitching about updated bikes at lower prices. The deal breaker for me is the lack of android auto which works GREAT on my '20, use it all the time to stay out of traffic problems, and control Pandora and XM without having to fumble with the phone with gloves on, etc. as you do with bluetooth. That's another discussion though.

 

Harley introduced the new 2023 CVO Road Glide and Street Glide with VVT in June of 2023.

 

The annual release of Icon bikes is midyear also. April-May the past three years.

 

To compare the 2023 SG to the '24 you'd have to add the GTS radio and WHIM, so about $2400 sans tax and installation, vs $350 to enable nav on the '24.

This still doesn't make it the same as a Special though, and the dealer-installed kit for the '24 still doesn't make that the same either. No two-tone paint, no stretched bags, no glossy inner fairing, and a different engine. While the 114 displacement doesn't matter hugely, the 114 has a more robust lower section with better margin for a big bore kit or other mods. Not saying that all these matter to you, but to someone for who it does the '24 with the farkle kit isn't going to be a substitute.

 

This just popped up on my feed, he demonstrates using Android Auto on his new Road Glide

 

WOW! This is a game changer for me. Brilliant! Now I want to leave work & go BIKE SHOPPING. If Android Auto works on this bike I might very well be in, that's probably enough to tip the scale for me. Of course pricing has to work, etc. but this was absolutely holding me back from pursuing, did not want to go backwards & lose that feature. Hmm. A magic box that tricks the radio into working with Android Auto. Just brilliant. Have to dig into this further.

THANK YOU!!!