Hi. Reading about the local content diminishing on the HD product, accessories, clothing etc. let me pose this. There is a trend for manufacturer's to build under licence outside of their generic country. Toyota build in Thailand, Mercedes and BMW build in South Africa and the list goes on. What would we think if Harley Davidson fully assembled their bike off shore (as Gold Wing does), lets say in South East Asia. Lets surmise that the bike was built better than the USA counterpart due to work structure, cheaper and better production lines etc. etc. As a result they were $5000 cheaper and better quality.

I live in Australia so I can not comment on the obvious parochialism of the US members (of which you should be proud) of this thread, it just seems so many things are heading this way here (In Oz), and around the world.

Would that effect us buying them? Would we feel we were losing something?

 

G'day Jeff!

We Harley owners are such a fickle lot.

My guess is we'd still buy 'em, smile about the price, then bi%&h about the quality. [:@]

 

Hi Jeff. The short answer? NO! I would not buy one. The day HD does that they alienate most of their market. I think I would go to a metric cruiser or a GW before I would buy a Harley under those conditions.

 

I'd guess I'd just keep my (for now) American made Dyna. If I needed a new ride than I'd start looking at Victory or a custom builder here in the US. Let's hope it doesn't come to that!

 

I'd head over to the Victory Dealer myself.

 

I think one of the strongest, if not THE strongest feature of H-D is that it is the epitome of the American success story. Four young men get together to build something and 103 years later it is one of the most recognized brands on the planet. I hope the people at the top of H-D still realize it.

If that happened, I would keep my old bike.

 

Actually, what needs to be done is that ALL vehicle mfgrs - that includes bikes - should have to list foreign content (that includes the NAFTA pals as fur'n). Some will not care. Some will.

If HD went totally foriegn like that I would not buy any new ones. HD is a symbol of America, like it or not, and if that symbol changed to a yellow star they can keep it.

 

Hello,

New member here..and this' my 1st post.

I don't know how many of you actually know this...but in the end of 1998 and by the beginning of 1999 Harley Davidson opened an Assembly operation in the town of Manaus, Brazil (yes, I'm located in Brazil)

just as a general knowledge, the HD assembly line here puts out the Softail and Touring line for comsumption locally..so these motorcycles are not exported to anywhere else.

Also, the bikes assembled here are 100% made from USA-shipped components...nothing..and I mean nothing (even the license plate screws) are made here.

what's done in this assembly line is just put the components shipped from USA together.

 

I wouldn't really care as long as it acted and behaved the way my Harley does now...I like Harley because of the way it feels underneath of me and the way it sounds. The mystique is nice and all, but I love the machine the most...and if it costs 5 grand less...thats just more money for accessories !

 

The Harleys sold here are absolutely the very same motorcycle as the American one...the only difference is that it's an international market model instead of a US domestic model.

it means that it respects the European emissions laws which are a little tighter than US (which is now getting tighter due to EPA new rules).