It’s no secret that Harley-Davidson has been struggling lately. That could all change thanks to the new Pan America adventure bike.
The company’s big ADV motorcycle is very different than the bikes the company is known for—big heavy cruisers. The response has been positive from the press, and customers alike.
According to The Milwaukee Business Journal, Harley-Davidson dealers have noticed a strong response from consumers. Bikes disappear from the showroom as soon as they arrive.
A New Path for Harley
Harley-Davidson’s former CEO, Matt Levatich, had a “More Roads to Harley-Davidson” strategy that included making bikes that would attract people outside the Harley brand. The Pan America was one of the bikes proposed.
When Levatich left, a lot of that strategy was scrapped, but the Pan America remained, and Harley is likely going to be glad that it kept this bike from the chopping block.
The new CEO of Harley, Jochen Zeitz, made the right call to keep the Pan America around. He could have axed the model like he did several others, but it was too close to being done, and I’d expect HD had too much R&D dollars wrapped up into the machine.
“Before you launch into a new category, you always get the doubters and the cynics, but I don’t really care about them,” Zeitz said in an interview, according to The New York Times. “Adventure and tourism are in Harley-Davidson’s DNA.”
Challenging the European Brands
The Pan America is targeted at buyers of other brands’ premium, high-displacement adventure motorcycles, most notably the BMW R 1250 GS. These bikes are as at home on the highway gobbling miles of pavement as they are off the beaten path traversing mud and gravel and shallow streams.
Based on multiple accounts from well-respected motorcycle journalists across the industry, the Pan America gets the job done. It’s a bike that brings to the table Harley’s quality and ethos but in a whole new way.
There’s also a value proposition here. Whereas most of Harley’s bikes are overpriced (at least in my eyes), the Pan America is actually competitively priced, and even undercuts the BMW R 1250 GS by a few hundred dollars. The Pan America costs $17,319 (starting MSRP), which is a very reasonable price for this motorcycle.
What’s somewhat ironic is that at the same time Harley is entering the adventure motorcycle market in a big way, BMW is entering the big cruiser market, with its R 18. That bike is in many ways a direct competitor to Harley’s standard fare of cruisers. It’s a weird world we are living in when BMW sees opportunity in cruisers and Harley sees opportunity in ADV bikes.
The Dawn of a New Era for Harley?
My guess is that if the Pan America is as big of a hit as it seems to be that Harley will be more inclined to branch out. Recently the company decided to spin off the LiveWire motorcycle into its own brand for electric bikes, which I think is a great move.
That said, there’s still plenty of room for Harley to grow into other segments of the motorcycle industry as long as they create motorcycles that are as engaging and well-priced as the Pan America. The future of Harley-Davidson could be bright, and I for one am very excited for what is to come.
