- 1 day ago
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
The US motorcycle market is a market of love. Performance stats, spec sheets, MPG, or other more practical concerns have a role, but it's usually to support and justify buying THE MOTORCYCLE WE LOVE. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about motorcycle styling, car styling, "covers" on appliances, and more. They also consider that motorcycles at the very least have to be more honest than cars in what they represent underneath their skin. Find out if you agree and we'll see you in the comments!
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
The US motorcycle market is a market of love. Performance stats, spec sheets, MPG, or other more practical concerns have a role, but it's usually to support and justify buying THE MOTORCYCLE WE LOVE. Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about motorcycle styling, car styling, "covers" on appliances, and more. They also consider that motorcycles at the very least have to be more honest than cars in what they represent underneath their skin. Find out if you agree and we'll see you in the comments!
Find us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/CycleWorldPodcast
Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Psycho World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, the Editor-in-Chief. I'm with Kevin Cameron, our Technical Editor.
00:00:07Thanks for joining us here on YouTube. You can catch us on Patreon, where it's all commercial-free for a
00:00:11low price.
00:00:13And we can have a more direct relationship that way, but if you want to stick on YouTube, by all
00:00:18means, stick with us here. We love you.
00:00:21Enjoy the comments as well.
00:00:24Kevin and I are going to talk about, well, styling.
00:00:26You know, we talked about beauty. What is beauty? In a previous podcast, not too long ago.
00:00:33And now we're talking about styling because we were talking about cars.
00:00:37Kevin brought up this thing called Caddy Hack, which we'll talk about later, which is a humorous quarter-mile test
00:00:45with a car.
00:00:47You know, motorcycles are honest. That's what I want to start off with, is generally speaking, they're honest because they
00:00:52have to be.
00:00:53There are certainly a lot of bikes with fairings and full coverage things going on, but generally they more echo
00:01:01what's underneath than do automobiles.
00:01:03And automobiles, in a lot of ways, are just big fakers.
00:01:06You know, they just have a giant, I don't know, outbuilding stuck on top of some mechanicals.
00:01:12And you might like the looks of that outbuilding that looks like it was, you know, born in the outback.
00:01:17Or you might like that outbuilding that was born on the front straight at Lemo.
00:01:23But all up, it's, well, don't we fall for design anyway, Kevin?
00:01:28Isn't that why lots of designers make a living designing things that make us feel something?
00:01:33This is what has to be admitted, is that all purchase decisions are emotional.
00:01:42And very few people will say, well, now I need to know more about fuel economy at 60 miles per
00:01:50hour.
00:01:50Do you have that data?
00:01:53What a tiresome motorcycle, prospective motorcycle owner.
00:01:58Go away.
00:01:59Get some enthusiasm.
00:02:02And, but a motorcycle is basically simple.
00:02:10So it can't carry a lot of self-advertisement.
00:02:18And the styling exercise that we were going to tuck in here at some point is a, what is it?
00:02:30A K-18.
00:02:31It's one of those super tours with six cylinders.
00:02:34Must be wicked smooth.
00:02:35Yeah, BMW K-18, the Vision K-18.
00:02:38Uh, no relation to the Vision, um, victory, Vision.
00:02:44There have been so many Visions.
00:02:46Lots of Visions.
00:02:47Visions, just a Vision for the future.
00:02:49Vision for BMW is typically a flight of fancy that might indicate something.
00:02:54It certainly isn't a prototype.
00:02:56It's not a, it's not indicative of what we would actually get.
00:02:59Although there could be some powerful inspiration there for a future direction for six cylinders.
00:03:05Now they have a, you know, this thing was debuted at the Concorso Villa d'Este in Italy.
00:03:11Like Como, it's a lovely spot.
00:03:13And, uh, BMW is, it is.
00:03:15BMW owns a piece of that.
00:03:17Um, they may own the whole thing.
00:03:18I don't know actually.
00:03:20Uh, but there's certainly big players in it and they bring their products there.
00:03:23And, um, it's a beautiful, beautiful event.
00:03:26And they've rolled out the R18.
00:03:28They had the R18 prototype in 2020 that was, you know, actually pretty close to production.
00:03:36I don't think they called that one a Vision.
00:03:39Uh, but this is a real flight of fancy.
00:03:42It's an inline six.
00:03:43It has six individual intake pipes that are very broadly featured.
00:03:46And then it has six pipes going out the back.
00:03:50And...
00:03:50Which, which look like...
00:03:52They echo.
00:03:53...a grenade launcher from an army tank.
00:03:55Well, the pipes do.
00:03:56But yeah, they, they come out in a box, uh, at the rear of the vehicle that echo the shape
00:04:02of bags.
00:04:03Now, when I saw this...
00:04:05Two, uh, rural free delivery mailboxes.
00:04:10With these strange pipes in there.
00:04:12And to emphasize that they have something to do with the heat engine, there are red LEDs in there to
00:04:19give it that glow.
00:04:21Well, I think those are the taillights, Kevin.
00:04:23And they do, but they do impart a glow on these white ceramic covered pipes.
00:04:27It's really, it's something.
00:04:28So I, I'll, I gotta give credit to BMW for, uh, executing a feeling.
00:04:35Because when I looked at it, especially from certain angles,
00:04:39I immediately thought of the XB-70 prototype, uh, supersonic bomber.
00:04:46And it has that kind of delta shape and the, the, the nose is high.
00:04:50They actually use the Concorde to, uh, to inspire this.
00:04:54So it was a very similar visual family.
00:04:56So I said, I say to them, good job.
00:05:00Concorde being a delta wing, uh, develops lift by outrageous angles of attack.
00:05:07And it remains stable like that.
00:05:09So that's how they've got it propped up on the ground so that, uh, you don't have to raise the
00:05:14nose wheel 30 feet in the air to develop some lift.
00:05:19Um, but here is this wonderful little book about Harley Earl, who was General Motors chief stylist.
00:05:30Actually, he, he, he, he was the styling department.
00:05:33There were a lot of people working there, but he was the one who would say, if you disagreed with
00:05:40him in a meeting,
00:05:42I want you to stand up so all these people can see what kind of a son of a bitch
00:05:46disagrees with me.
00:05:50Oh, it's like that.
00:05:52It was time to whip out the 45.
00:05:56Well, there's a lot of, those are, those meetings can be heated.
00:06:01He saw, uh, the P 38 in a privileged, uh, exhibition.
00:06:07Please don't step any closer than 30 feet because it was before the war.
00:06:11And he studied it for, he just stared at it, tail fins.
00:06:20Remember the P 38 has twin booms coming back from the engine nacelles to us, to a single horizontal tail
00:06:28and two vertical stabilizers.
00:06:31And, uh, in 1949, they did a clay mockup of a car with fins.
00:06:38And two years later they had motorized it.
00:06:41By lowering it onto an existing chassis.
00:06:45And it had two, um, turbine inlets in the front with bulbous noses sticking out of them and blades.
00:06:55I don't think they whirled about.
00:06:57And a big jet tube in the back.
00:07:00This was an idea car.
00:07:02Hey, maybe you'd like to buy some more surplus J-Toe bottles and attach them to your buggy.
00:07:09One fellow did that.
00:07:13Uh, he's no longer with us.
00:07:15Sad to say.
00:07:17Those bottles have some thrust for just a few seconds.
00:07:20At least that's honest styling.
00:07:23If you actually put your J-Toe on it.
00:07:26It was a hell of a ride while it lasted.
00:07:28And all that we got out of that was, uh, fins, Chrysler Corporation went nuts with them.
00:07:37They had the tallest.
00:07:39Cadillac was quite reserved by comparison.
00:07:43But still pretty, I want to say pretty flamboyant though.
00:07:46Cadillac, I mean, when they grew into 59, by 59 they were incredibly flamboyant.
00:07:53And I think they got handed their, uh, you know, their lunch by Lincoln in 61 when the Lincoln came
00:08:00up.
00:08:00And it had these really crisp old money lines.
00:08:03And I think it just made the Cadillac look like new money.
00:08:06A carvenue.
00:08:07Yes.
00:08:07Garish.
00:08:09Yes.
00:08:09And the fins were over, right?
00:08:11It didn't, it didn't, uh, didn't last much longer than that.
00:08:14We had this very wonderful brief moment of.
00:08:16We also had bumper bombs.
00:08:19There have been a variety of names for these, but that's all that was left of the twin turbines.
00:08:26Turbine inlets was bumper bombs.
00:08:29And the, uh, dollar grin, as the Europeans liked to make fun of American cars of the late forties, uh,
00:08:38was on my uncle's 1948 Buick convertible.
00:08:43It was just a marvelous excess of chrome teeth.
00:08:50I love that car because it made that straight eight sound, which is so smooth.
00:08:57Um, uh, but the point is here, Harley Earl said the stylist must lead the public, but not by too
00:09:09much.
00:09:11And so everything got tremendously toned down between his flights of fancy, the various firebirds, one, two, and three, uh,
00:09:21that destroyer of conversation.
00:09:23Firebird two, I think had each passenger.
00:09:27It was a two seater had his or her own bubble.
00:09:31You couldn't turn and talk to the other person.
00:09:36So, uh, just like the late war, uh, sliding canopies on fighters,
00:09:43160 degree vision.
00:09:46What could be better?
00:09:50And Harley Earl encountered Alfred P Sloan.
00:09:56We think of him as having given money for a vast cancer research operation for which we thank him.
00:10:03But what he discovered in the process of trying to organize five companies into a single organization,
00:10:13somehow it came to him.
00:10:17I could entice people to spend beyond their budget by presenting a stairway of expense and decoration in automobiles.
00:10:32We'll have Chevrolet at the bottom.
00:10:35And then we'll have Oldsmobile.
00:10:38Well, Pontiac eventually.
00:10:41Oldsmobile, Buick.
00:10:43And finally, Cadillac.
00:10:46And it just, it worked fantastically.
00:10:49Well, and side note, there was a difference between Chevrolets and Cadillacs.
00:10:54Uh, in the sixties, Chevrolet had three piston weight groupings in building their engines.
00:11:00Cadillac had five.
00:11:01Yes, I remember that.
00:11:03We were getting smoother, you see, in Cadillacs.
00:11:05Yes, certainly.
00:11:07No, I think that, uh, it was, it was very much to their credit that they retained separate engine, uh,
00:11:14division.
00:11:15Each division had its own engines.
00:11:16And which meant that, uh, there were different ideas of what should be done, which is always, um, a rich
00:11:26source of argument and fresh ideas.
00:11:29So, uh, then came the idea that, uh, dial could sell cars.
00:11:37And what Harley Earl discovered was that people buy cars for emotional reasons.
00:11:45And therefore, it is cheaper and much more effective to spend promotional money on the appearance of the car rather
00:11:59than technological features, safety, etc.
00:12:05Um, the question of comfort is a, quite a separate thing.
00:12:11I've had such discussions with my missus anyway.
00:12:15Uh, this worked out into a methodology that carried on until 1970.
00:12:23At one point, I think General Motors had more than half the U S market at the present moment in
00:12:30the face of worldwide competition.
00:12:3317.3% is what they had.
00:12:37So it was a, it was a wonderful party that seemed like it would never end.
00:12:44And along the way, fabulous idea, cars, um, grandiose notions of what the future might bring rocket cars, what have
00:12:56you.
00:12:56And then, uh, came OPEC, Volkswagen, Datsun, and the others.
00:13:06And everything was changed.
00:13:09But what worked well for General Motors worked best during a time of an up market.
00:13:17So from 1919, the year after World War I ended until 1929, just before the Great Depression, they didn't call
00:13:28them recessions then or timeouts.
00:13:33Uh, U S industrial production doubled.
00:13:41So, and then the post-war boom after World War II was another, that fed Harley Earl's, uh, division like
00:13:52crazy.
00:13:53It was, it was a wonderful time for stylists.
00:13:56This is much more difficult to do with a motorcycle because it can't carry as much extra stuff.
00:14:04And that's why I was interested to look in the, in the, uh, what was it, February 87 issue of
00:14:14Hot Rod magazine, Caddy Hack.
00:14:19They wanted a four-door, but they got a coop and it only weighed 4,500 pounds.
00:14:26So they put eight people, two surfboards, and in the vast, vastly spacious trunk, two extra doors.
00:14:36And they, they went 17 point something seconds at 80 point something miles per hour.
00:14:44In the quarter mile.
00:14:45So basic, yes, in the quarter mile, none of this thousand foot nonsense.
00:14:51And then they took all that stuff out.
00:14:54They took 1880 pounds of stuff out and the car went a second quicker.
00:14:59Try making your car a second quicker with engine modifications.
00:15:03One of the things they found was that the mighty 472 cubic inch V8 turned the tires into smoke.
00:15:11So they had to put slicks on.
00:15:13There wasn't enough weight.
00:15:15They needed down, more downforce.
00:15:19Road hugging weight.
00:15:20Yes.
00:15:22Uh, then they started up the destruction saw in one of those carbide chainsaws.
00:15:30And they just started hacking stuff off the car.
00:15:33And the bottom line for all this was they got the car down to 2,900 pounds.
00:15:39The driver is sitting on a peach crate.
00:15:42And goes 13 seconds, 100 miles per hour.
00:15:49And the lesson, of course, is that weight is the enemy of performance.
00:15:58And this is why motorcycle design is constantly seeking ways to make structures and other parts lighter.
00:16:12I remember that the big inline for air-cooled 1,000cc bike engines of the sit-up superbike era, 200
00:16:24to 225 pounds.
00:16:26And could be modified up to, um, Rob Muzzy's 150 odd horsepower.
00:16:36And the present day, Ducati's V4 weighs 143 pounds with the intake system on it and gives, how much do
00:16:53you want to pay?
00:16:53200, 214, 228 horsepower.
00:16:59So there's been a lot of changes since those days.
00:17:03My point here is that much of the actual change in motorcycles is not styling.
00:17:11Because it can't, the motorcycle can't carry hundreds of pounds of style package.
00:17:16It is things that you can't see, like the tires, the, uh, drivetrains.
00:17:25These dual-clutch transmissions and automated shift offend the daylights out of traditionalists who want, uh, motorcycles to be served
00:17:38raw on a plate.
00:17:39They don't want anything between them and the steel.
00:17:43Everything went downhill, everything went downhill after the 68 Triumph.
00:17:49Yes, if you please.
00:17:52And they machined a place on the cheek of those twins and put another cylinder on it and called it
00:17:59Trident.
00:18:00Trident.
00:18:02Try curling a Trident crankshaft.
00:18:05It is just substantial.
00:18:10I tried.
00:18:12Um, the late Robert Iannucci had one sitting on the bench and I couldn't resist.
00:18:19It's a mighty thing.
00:18:21Harley cranks have a bit of mass.
00:18:27Yes.
00:18:28Yes, they do.
00:18:33Motorcycle innovations are continuous.
00:18:38But they aren't a part of styling.
00:18:43There are sort of big crude trends, like around 2002, the idea that the motorcycle should resemble a dart or
00:18:53lance that has been hurled and has stuck in the ground at an angle.
00:18:57And it just looks like we're going forward.
00:19:00That's a big theme.
00:19:02Supersonics, buddy, too.
00:19:04Yes.
00:19:05Uh, fake intakes.
00:19:07Uh, lots of fake intakes.
00:19:11NACA ducts.
00:19:12NACA ducts, man.
00:19:14And I'm sure they were real on my VFR 750.
00:19:18Had to have them.
00:19:20Yes.
00:19:20Because they had to be real.
00:19:22Because of all the smoke coming from your clutch at every red light.
00:19:26It was a, it was a wet clutch, of course.
00:19:28Um, but the scope for all of this is quite, is quite limited.
00:19:36I believe one of the bikes that's often pictured in styling commentary is John Britton's, uh, V-Twin, uh, with
00:19:47its sort of pink and bluish purple paint job.
00:19:51And it is really to be put with some of the English designers who, unable to get management to go
00:20:06for a complete cover, put little graceful curlicues of fiberglass that are held on brackets.
00:20:17And they're, what are they?
00:20:19I call them eye guides.
00:20:20You look at them and you, you, you can imagine this, the smoothly streaming airflow traveling around the vehicle.
00:20:28They're not unattractive, but they're nonsense.
00:20:36And it doesn't matter because people are going, well, here's the story that tells it all.
00:20:44Um, our friend, uh, Mark, who's still employed at that ad agency.
00:20:50Uh, came home one day to find, uh, his son and three friends talking about, uh, whatever concerned them.
00:21:00And he said to himself, here's an opportunity to make contact with the younger generation.
00:21:06And he asked them how they would choose a new 600.
00:21:13This is back in the days of, uh, sport bikes and 17,000 RPM 600.
00:21:23And they sort of had a, a little conversation among themselves.
00:21:27And one of them said, finally said, well, it's like this.
00:21:31They're all on the market there.
00:21:33They're, what that means is they're satisfactory.
00:21:36They're vehicles.
00:21:37They work.
00:21:38So that's a given.
00:21:42Consequently, we would buy the one that looks the coolest.
00:21:46And that's how it is.
00:21:49Um, I don't think that you can distill these aspects into little jars of differently colored
00:21:57brown powders and say a pinch of this, a three soul of that, a whiff of the other and shazam.
00:22:07Um, you have touched the nerve, the sales nerve, and all of those models rush out of the showroom.
00:22:19But styling commentary continues to be written on that basis as though, well, we'll put in
00:22:25a little ADV and we'll, of course, everybody has Brembo brake calipers.
00:22:29So we'll put Nissan on ours and this and that and the other thing.
00:22:33And it's all very much like those chef shows on TV.
00:22:36We're taking a pinch of this and a pinch of that.
00:22:39And they put this thing in front of you that is, has every color under the rainbow of the rainbow.
00:22:47So I'm deeply suspicious of this, but I do accept that the motorcycle industry would be very different
00:22:57if styling was not an effective sales tool.
00:23:03Because the basic fact is this, most of us will never become very good motorcyclists.
00:23:11We may become experienced.
00:23:13We may cultivate the right responses to situations as they come up.
00:23:20But we're not going to be able to come in off the course and say,
00:23:27back in's not hooking up.
00:23:28I want to have a little conference here.
00:23:33No, we're, we're not going to get close to those radical edges.
00:23:39There are a few, but most of us aren't going to.
00:23:45So much of modern motorcycle technology is not for those people.
00:23:52It's not for the majority of motorcyclists.
00:23:56They want to ride on a motorcycle that pleases them.
00:24:01And they'll ride at the speed they choose, not a speed that is chosen by the motorcycle itself.
00:24:08We had an era like that for a while in which if you cannot, you cannot wear shorts and go
00:24:15-aheads and ride an ADV bike.
00:24:18You have to have all that aero stitch business.
00:24:22Or you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll just be laughed out of the club.
00:24:27And of course, one piece leathers on the sport bike and so on.
00:24:33Well, you know, it does, uh, you are fulfilling your self-image with a motorcycle.
00:24:37My opinion is that you're fulfilling.
00:24:39Absolutely.
00:24:40You're fulfilling your self-image.
00:24:41So it's, it's how do you like to dress?
00:24:43You know, you like to dress like a pirate.
00:24:45Well, you're probably going to go on the cruiser, uh, cruiser side, uh, et cetera.
00:24:50So it's, uh, you're definitely fulfilling that primal level of, um, self-image.
00:24:58One might almost call it totemic.
00:25:00Yeah.
00:25:01And you want, what do you want?
00:25:02You want to, um, you want to fulfill that feeling that you have, even if you aren't necessarily executing it.
00:25:11So I was not a particularly competent motorcyclist when I bought my first new motorcycle.
00:25:17I was caught, let me say I was competent, but I was an expert at relatively low street miles.
00:25:22And I bought a 1995 VFR 750, but I'd been reading, you know, cycle world magazine and watching
00:25:29down Don can a out there dragging the gas cap and turn eight willow Springs and, or, you
00:25:34know, sport rider.
00:25:35That was one of your, one of your great lines in the back of your book where you, you talked
00:25:38about, um, the sport bike performance handbook, uh, in the back end of it, you talked about
00:25:43all the different publications that were around.
00:25:45And that was your line for sport rider was the view from turn eight willow Springs.
00:25:49That was your characterization for someone to, uh, to check out sport rider.
00:25:54And it's, you know, it rings true.
00:25:56Deep into it.
00:25:57Yeah.
00:25:58Yeah.
00:25:58I wanted a piece of, of what Don can a was showing me and Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey
00:26:04looking at those, uh, heroes getting the most out of the motorcycle.
00:26:08So that's why I wanted a piece of it with a VFR and the VFR was really inspired by an
00:26:13NR seven fifties.
00:26:14You know, the one I bought was inspired by the NR seven 50 and you know, I knew it had
00:26:21gear driven cams.
00:26:22So that was, is that internal styling?
00:26:26Pretty cool.
00:26:27It is very cool.
00:26:28It is.
00:26:29Could you hear it?
00:26:30Yeah, you could.
00:26:31Oh yeah.
00:26:31Well, that's very important.
00:26:33That sound.
00:26:34Yes.
00:26:34The sound of gears will sell me.
00:26:38Yeah.
00:26:39So highly emotional.
00:26:40I mean, we are definitely, uh, for our market, we are an emotional purchaser.
00:26:45Uh, you can use all the other justifications.
00:26:47You can say, well, it will get good gas mileage and look how comfortable the passenger seat is
00:26:53and we can ride on it together.
00:26:55Um, it'll be easy to park in California.
00:26:57I can ride between traffic lanes.
00:26:59There are many, there's, you know, secondary justifications, tertiary.
00:27:05I told my parents, I told my parents that the motorcycle I had bought was little and
00:27:12had only 4.95 horsepower at 4,500 RPM.
00:27:18How fast does it go?
00:27:2045 miles an hour.
00:27:24Oh, I was in.
00:27:26Yeah.
00:27:27But you got to have it.
00:27:29You, you weren't buying it because it was anything except something you got to have.
00:27:35I mean, you just, that's it.
00:27:40But that was also in a, in a day when the $140 that I paid for it would have bought
00:27:45me
00:27:45a running car.
00:27:46I didn't want a car.
00:27:50So, yes.
00:27:51I, I go back to Edward Turner of Triumph, transforming the line into twins and his, I don't know,
00:28:02his sensitivity for proportion, uh, color shape was, was real knockout.
00:28:10And Triumph, Triumph lived off of that.
00:28:12I mean, they were hardly different than an Orton twin, hardly different.
00:28:19And he did not discuss it with anyone.
00:28:22It was up to him.
00:28:23Just like when Cook, Cook Nelson needed a cover photograph, he loaded up a motorcycle and drove
00:28:29to Willow to arrive at what, five o'clock in the morning to get those light conditions
00:28:34as the sun just illuminates the world.
00:28:39And they would come back with the cover photo, um, uh, autocrats, I believe they're called.
00:28:47Certainly Edward Turner was an autocrat, but he, he, he did well with it.
00:28:55He, he did have his finger on the pulse of the motorcyclists.
00:29:00Well, and they lived on that essential design until even in the oil and frame before, before
00:29:07Slumber's Glade and all that, uh, hoo-ha with the ray gun mufflers and, and, you know, the
00:29:14styling of the future.
00:29:15We had a bunch of those in the back room at our dealership.
00:29:17Yeah.
00:29:18Yeah.
00:29:19Try to find them now.
00:29:20Everybody, you know, everybody who's doing those would like to get a, get those on their
00:29:23bike because they did, you know, they signify a time, but that period, that block, you know,
00:29:29from say 39 to, you know, 70 with the lap, the final, um, oil tank, you know, Bonneville,
00:29:38um, they were just living off of that.
00:29:42Just like Harley, it continues to live off of, you know, the EL that, that continuous line.
00:29:49And, and all of those designers, like it's great.
00:29:53It's great in this business to go to a press launch and have the design team there and
00:29:58have a, a piece of the presentation dedicated to, we made it look like this for these reasons.
00:30:05And then you see all the artwork behind it.
00:30:08And as you were talking about the, you know, the javelin sticking into the ground, those
00:30:12sport bikes that are up on their nose and their asses in the air and they're aggro, like
00:30:18all of that is, is kind of gestured.
00:30:21That's all gestured.
00:30:22And they have overlays of swooping lines and, you know, like that, the, uh, the artistic
00:30:28pursuit of gesture drawings, where you just kind of like do all this stuff and this, the
00:30:33shape appears as you're watching it, you know, laying down the line.
00:30:38It's, uh, it's great.
00:30:41But at Harley Davidson, the shape doesn't look a lot different from last year's and they're,
00:30:47they make damn certain of it.
00:30:49Well, they so significantly do look different.
00:30:51That's what's fantastic about it is if you, you know, when the, when the last, the last
00:30:59version of the road glide was the last version of the road glide, you looked at it and go,
00:31:03yeah, that's the road glide.
00:31:04That's great.
00:31:05It looks cool, man.
00:31:07You know, great.
00:31:08And then they came out with the most recent design of the road glide, the one they're
00:31:12selling now.
00:31:14And you're like, huh, I don't know.
00:31:16Yes.
00:31:17I mean, I don't know.
00:31:20Looks like a road glide.
00:31:21Yeah, I guess.
00:31:23And then when you look at the old road glide, you're like, man, that, that looks out of date.
00:31:26You know, this new road glide, that's, that's the road glide.
00:31:29So it, it really carries the image forward in a million really subtle ways, but it keeps
00:31:36that, it keeps the cozy blanket there that I feel comfortable with this design.
00:31:41And it moves it forward, but not too far.
00:31:46Well, they had CEOs who decided to scare away a substantial portion of their clientele with
00:31:58live wire, an electric motorcycle that looked like a suitcase with fins with a wheel in front
00:32:06and a wheel behind.
00:32:08And it was an excellent electric motorcycle and the fastest accelerating production motorcycle ever
00:32:15from that company, as you would expect, because that's what electrics do best, is accelerate.
00:32:24And someone had to decide, yes, let's pour millions into this.
00:32:30And some other great leadership, schooled at Walmart or wherever, decided, our hands are
00:32:39tied.
00:32:40We have to drop Sportster.
00:32:42Drop Sportster?
00:32:44Why not stop making motorcycles altogether and go into pots and pans?
00:32:51So now they're bringing Sportster back.
00:32:54And I think there is a God or functional equivalent.
00:33:01Because Sportster is the realization of cocky, young man, young woman arrogance and willingness
00:33:19to try anything.
00:33:20It's not a high performance motorcycle.
00:33:23No, on no technical merit, they sold a million plus from 03 to the last year.
00:33:27Yes, this is the point.
00:33:29This is the point.
00:33:30Not that it's not a good motorcycle.
00:33:31It is a good motorcycle, but it isn't technically superior to other things on the market.
00:33:37It's heavy by comparison.
00:33:39You want a light, agile motorcycle?
00:33:41MT-07, MT-09.
00:33:43It'll give you plenty of pep and, you know, 100 pounds less easy.
00:33:50So no technical merit.
00:33:52But that's the thing is like, you know, if you look at Harley's marketing evolution over
00:33:57the last, oh, since, well, when they brought out the soft tail, they made a huge deal about,
00:34:07oh, 15% more chassis rigidity.
00:34:10And they started trotting out all these technical reasons that they made the new soft tail, which
00:34:15is, it's pretty cool, but, but not why we're here.
00:34:20You know, like that was always, that was always buried into the product.
00:34:24Like we're going to make it better.
00:34:25Like touring, they, they made a big deal in 09 when they redid the touring chassis, which
00:34:31was a huge improvement, which is what they're still using.
00:34:34Um, but it wasn't, they weren't leading with all of this technical stuff.
00:34:40So, you know, the sports are, oh, we're going to use the 60 degree V twin.
00:34:45I mean, they didn't have manufacturing capacity to, to do, we need the 60 degree V twin to
00:34:51put in an adventure bike because we want to play in the space and we want to show people
00:34:54that we are technically proficient and we can design and compete.
00:34:59Modern engines.
00:35:00And they did.
00:35:01And they did.
00:35:02It's a great engine.
00:35:04It's just like, you know, again, I would have fought to the death to keep sportster as it
00:35:10was change it, update it, move the cams up, but leave the exhaust ports where they are,
00:35:15leave the intakes where they are, mount the exhaust in a very similar way, but modular frame
00:35:21that you can change into sporty standard to laid back, you know, high ape hanger type thing.
00:35:27I wanted to look, I wanted to look like the sportsters look when I would, would come out of the
00:35:35ebb tide, a music place north of Boston, which had among others, uh, on their playlist, um, Chuck Berry.
00:35:47He was, he was, he was, he was like two hours late arriving one time and we're all getting restive
00:35:54and the girls are walking around and picking up our half full bottles and making faces at us.
00:36:00And they said, are you, you're not really a man, are you drink up?
00:36:06And outside sitting at the curb were these bikes that were leaned over on their side stance to the left
00:36:14with the front wheels turned to the right.
00:36:17And it was, it was just like, just a third finger in iron and steel.
00:36:26Dance, swagger.
00:36:28Yes.
00:36:29Sweat, you know, it's, it is a hundred percent.
00:36:32I mean, you know, uh, choppers, terrible motorcycles, but they're, they have a feeling they have, they culturally speak a
00:36:39feeling to the builder and the owner in particular, but also watching them go down the road.
00:36:44And we can talk about, oh, they were based on drag bikes and diggers and, and all of that.
00:36:49But the chopper evolved into its own thing.
00:36:51Tall, skinny bike, no front brake, just what you need.
00:36:55And, uh, it's a feeling.
00:36:57And if you don't, you know, I think.
00:37:01Emotion rules.
00:37:02Yeah.
00:37:03For, for our market, emotion rules, you know, for a functional market where we're, we're using our motorcycle to transport
00:37:09five family members or using it for work or.
00:37:11I mean, how many, I love the ingenuity and balance and proficiency of people carrying rebar on one fifties and
00:37:20shopping and bags of flour and.
00:37:23Creates of chickens.
00:37:24Creates of chickens.
00:37:26Gackling.
00:37:26Goats.
00:37:27You name it.
00:37:28It's fantastic.
00:37:30Um, and that's not necessarily an emotional purchase, but for the artistic, uh, folk in the United States, man.
00:37:40First thing, gotta have it.
00:37:41Everything else, justification.
00:37:43Is it affordable?
00:37:44You gotta work on all those conflicting problems of just loving it.
00:37:48And cause you also gotta be able to buy it.
00:37:51And it has to be made to be bought.
00:37:53Which is another podcast in and of itself.
00:37:56Like, thank goodness we have efficient production.
00:37:59Thank goodness Royal Enfield innovates its manufacturing in such a way as to basically, I don't know, crib the Harley
00:38:08Davidson model.
00:38:09Like, well, here's a couple of platforms and now we're going to riff on them in 28 different ways.
00:38:13And you've got cruisers, you got 650 cruisers, 40 bikes, you got the bear scramblery guy.
00:38:21Like you're just getting different feelings, different colors, slightly different shapes, but we're making a million of the base, uh,
00:38:28engine by the way.
00:38:29And it's very affordable.
00:38:31Yes.
00:38:32And it's affordable because they have made a, uh, pilgrimage, pilgrimage, made a, made a,
00:38:42a central feature of their effort to eliminate supply lines, to have it all under their own control rather than,
00:38:52well, uh, the railroad from here to Thailand, where they're making our frames, there's something going on there.
00:38:59Uh, maybe it's labor trouble or something.
00:39:02Um, no, they have, they have the Thai designed chassis manufacturing operation at their plant.
00:39:13So they are able to, to make use of labor saving and cost cutting methods that are not yet general
00:39:24in motorcycling as a whole.
00:39:26They are the leaders in this area.
00:39:29Um, and this is what happens when I remember when people said cheap, Jap, junk.
00:39:36Um, and I was riding a Honda and I just thought you ignore Amos because I knew better, not because
00:39:48I was a cocky young man who should have been riding a sportster, but because I'd been, I'd been inside.
00:39:56Um, good stuff in there, but, um, like, um, like Harley Earl said, the public are always a little bit
00:40:05behind, uh, the, the, the leading edge.
00:40:09And before long people were lining up to buy, um, Honda automobiles, CVCC, uh, the, the civic, and then later,
00:40:23um, all those other attractive models.
00:40:27So they were soon talking out of the other side of their mouths.
00:40:31Same thing is happening in the case of, of China.
00:40:34And now I went to lunch with some friends.
00:40:38I said something about having bought four Chinese made, um, outer race, only needle roller bearings.
00:40:48I said, what?
00:40:49You're not going to put those in something important, are you?
00:40:57They're marketed through a U S company who will definitely hear about failures.
00:41:03So, uh, very interesting to see how long it takes to catch up in certain areas.
00:41:10The Chinese have to come up with standards so that when a manufacturer orders 4130 tubing, that's what will come.
00:41:22And not some melted down scrap automobiles rolled into sheet metal and curved around and seam welded.
00:41:31Yeah, I think the, you know, going to India in 2008, when the, uh, UCE, the unit construction single with
00:41:40500 and 350 singles were just coming out, that was the beginning of the transformation of Royal Enfield.
00:41:46And, and Dr. KP Nair was their director of, um, quality control and, uh, director of quality.
00:41:54He, he looked me in the eye and said, well, we are, we don't have Japanese quality.
00:42:00We're at least 80% there, probably more.
00:42:04And, you know, the Japanese had been in the market.
00:42:06There was hero Honda and, you know, other Suzuki TBS and whatever, whoever the partners were.
00:42:12Um, and they were, you know, he had worked at, uh, at Honda and he was trying to bring that
00:42:17thinking and methodology to Royal Enfield.
00:42:21And they had a modern factory and they were making, they were making those steps.
00:42:24You don't change it overnight or maybe you do, but it, it took, it took this long and unrelenting pressure
00:42:32from Royal Enfield and volume to transform that company into what they build.
00:42:38Now, which is a really high quality motorcycle that has no real distinct difference.
00:42:42You don't walk up to it.
00:42:43And when you walked up to a UCE, you could still see like, oh, this is, you know, this, you
00:42:50know, this bolt head is obviously heavily polished in the wrong direction and it's rounded the edge off.
00:42:56And, and the hex is not quite hexagonal and that's just over, you know, that, that stuff's just over, but
00:43:02they, you know, they had a supplier problem too.
00:43:05And if you order parts, you know, it's really hit or miss.
00:43:08A friend of mine is in, um, the British parts business.
00:43:11There's a aftermarket company.
00:43:12So if you need parts for your triumph, you call it JRC engineering and they, they source from around the
00:43:18world because they have to, they source in England as much as they can in America, you name it.
00:43:22But there's, you know, if you're carrying the part that costs less, there's a lot of people who just want
00:43:27that one that costs less and that's it.
00:43:29They want the Chinese part or the Indian part.
00:43:32And, but sometimes when you call the Indian supplier, if you're trying somebody new, they will send you fenders that
00:43:38are made out of salvaged, uh, car parts.
00:43:41On the underside, it's, it's, uh, the pain of an automobile stitch welded to something else and hammered into a
00:43:51fender.
00:43:51And the outside of it looks pretty darn good, but you know, I think there's less of that happening.
00:43:56So yeah, in the late forties, I had, uh, pressed tin toys, wind up little cars.
00:44:03And when I unbent the tabs to take the body off, it was beer can logo.
00:44:11People were, were salvaging beer cans from, uh, American PX and making toys out of them.
00:44:18You can either say how primitive or what enterprise in both cases, you'd be right.
00:44:26Um, but, uh, this is all a process and that's why, um, Dr.
00:44:34Deming said an increase in quality is an increase in production.
00:44:40Um, cause it means fewer will be rejected for not meeting the quality standard that is added to production.
00:44:49Um, so many cars were being sold hand over fist during the, the post-war boom in the U S,
00:44:55uh, forties, early fifties that they were tolerating as much as 30% rework.
00:45:02So they say this one, this one, this one doesn't work, uh, send it to rework and they, they would
00:45:07pull the engine out or pull the rear axle out and correct whatever the problem was because sales were just.
00:45:17And then when competition arrives and your competitor is using these new methods, I wouldn't call Dr.
00:45:27Deming's methods new, but, um, certainly the competitors were using them.
00:45:33You have to start using them too, or you're going to get, uh, a dropping.
00:45:39Well, in the case of the British industry, they needed to start using them a decade before the Japanese just
00:45:47pounded them into the earth.
00:45:49Yeah.
00:45:50Yeah.
00:45:51Money was good though.
00:45:52We kept, you know, we kept making the same bike and the Americans kept buying it.
00:45:56Why don't we just keep on, keep on doing it?
00:45:58Yeah.
00:45:58We should probably update the twin, but maybe it could use a center crank web.
00:46:02I don't know.
00:46:03Nah.
00:46:05Yeah.
00:46:06Yeah.
00:46:06Look what happened to AJS when they tried that.
00:46:09Yeah.
00:46:09Yeah.
00:46:10See, they were wrong.
00:46:12Yeah.
00:46:14Now, why, why does the motorcycle industry, why do they waste money on stuff like new casting processes and so
00:46:21forth?
00:46:23Because it's 32 pounds of aluminum they don't have to buy to go into the new motorcycle.
00:46:29That's why.
00:46:32And the process also happens to produce sounder parts.
00:46:38It used to be that if I took, um, die cast parts from the Japanese motorcycle to the welder, the
00:46:45welder would strike the arc and he would say, goddamn Jap metal.
00:46:50No, it was goddamn die cast metal because die cast metal in those days was full of gas.
00:46:58The moment you got it hot, it lifted up like a pile of wet leaves that had been put on
00:47:05a hot stovetop.
00:47:06It delaminated.
00:47:09It was marvelous.
00:47:10Yeah, all that stuff.
00:47:12But quality is a process.
00:47:13And what drives it is not a fanatical desire to do things perfectly.
00:47:18It's to increase production without significantly increasing cost.
00:47:26And the tires that, that are now available, the rubber that is now available is completely different from 20 years
00:47:34ago.
00:47:35And it's just wonderful.
00:47:39So there's so much in a modern motorcycle that is new and highly desirable.
00:47:45It increases control that improves safety, longevity, um, that we have to be, we have, it's a prideful thing.
00:47:58It's wonderful that all these improvements are there, but they have been undertaken for profit.
00:48:07But when it comes to sales, you've got to make it look right or they won't buy it.
00:48:15Well, I like the honesty of the motorcycle in general.
00:48:18I mean, we've, we've seen fake covers, uh, or just calm covers because the fake is implied.
00:48:24Um, Royal Star, Yamaha Royal Star, the V4 was based on the VMAX, really nicely produced motorcycle steel fenders.
00:48:34They really, they worked Yamaha.
00:48:36It was the sub-brand of Yamaha.
00:48:38Uh, Star became its own, its own thing.
00:48:40Like a Lexus is sort of what they were going for.
00:48:43And the Royal Star is a pretty nice bike.
00:48:45I think, um, in the cosmic sense, they should never have uttered the word VMAX when they talked about the
00:48:51V4,
00:48:52because the Royal Star was tuned to be very Harley.
00:48:55Like it had 62 horsepower.
00:48:56Um, I believe on our dyno, it was 62 horsepower, which is what Harleys were making at the time.
00:49:01But on a Harley, it was a very rapid and easy.
00:49:05I'm changing the pipes.
00:49:06I'm changing the intake and I'm doing a little bit to the carb.
00:49:09And I got 77 horsepower or 82 horsepower.
00:49:12And then you had something and it sounded throaty and it was a little bit harder to do that on
00:49:17the Royal Star.
00:49:18But on the covers front, you know, aside from the beautiful paint and the steel fenders,
00:49:23they put covers that were bolted to the sides of the engine that you could take off and replace with
00:49:29accessory covers.
00:49:30And this was the era of Billet.
00:49:31You know, this was like 95, 94, 95.
00:49:34And, and this was the, all the customizers had discovered Billet.
00:49:39And so everything was being machined.
00:49:40Because the Cold War ended in 91.
00:49:42Then we needed, we had excess machining.
00:49:45Machine tool spindles.
00:49:47We're looking for something to bite.
00:49:50Yes.
00:49:51Billet.
00:49:51Okay, boomer.
00:49:52Let's go.
00:49:55So, so, you know, those engine covers on the one hand, yeah, it makes it really easy to say,
00:50:01this is my bike and I've made it look a certain way and I like the way it looks, but
00:50:04it's disingenuous.
00:50:05And I've always had a problem with that.
00:50:07And I like, I like the engine to be designed with an indication.
00:50:14As an engine.
00:50:15As an engine.
00:50:15It's showing something underneath it.
00:50:18So if you look at the timing side on a Norton Commando, you're like, oh, I know what that's.
00:50:24Yeah.
00:50:24Okay.
00:50:24I get it.
00:50:25I know what's in there.
00:50:26And there's gears where you take it off.
00:50:28And like, like there's gears, even, even when they left the lobe where the distributor used to be.
00:50:35That's fake.
00:50:36Yeah.
00:50:38But, and yet we still, we still love it.
00:50:43I don't know.
00:50:43It's just, you know, we, some things we can't get around.
00:50:46We can't get around the covers on exhaust systems.
00:50:51You have to go in the aftermarket, like on your Harley, virtually every exhaust system is now covered with a
00:50:57cover.
00:50:59It sweeps the contour.
00:51:01It doesn't discolor.
00:51:02It's held on with hose clamps.
00:51:03But how hard would I try to fight against that if I were there?
00:51:08I probably would.
00:51:09I'd be like, no, no.
00:51:10Like, why don't we have stainless pipes here?
00:51:13Legal department, legal department guy comes in and says, riffling through a pile of documents, bikes fell over on people.
00:51:21Exhaust pipe burns.
00:51:23We paid.
00:51:24Yeah.
00:51:25We're not going to pay anymore.
00:51:26We're going to design it out.
00:51:28Well, that's good sense.
00:51:29But we got used to the way it looks.
00:51:32Yeah.
00:51:33Now, back to this, this K-18 thing, K-12 thing, whatever it is.
00:51:40K-18.
00:51:41Yeah.
00:51:42Yeah.
00:51:43And you'll see that the exhaust pipes, six of them, curl.
00:51:51And I'm sure that that is inspired by looking at the beautiful Akrapovich exhaust systems on whoever they produce exhaust
00:52:01systems for.
00:52:02They are so beautiful.
00:52:04I want to eat them.
00:52:08I want to have them.
00:52:11Yeah, Akra's in a real league, man.
00:52:13I mean, they have a titanium foundry.
00:52:15And I know I keep talking about the baggers, but I got up close to them.
00:52:20And the header pipes.
00:52:22Well, they're making castings, yeah.
00:52:23Yeah, the header, because they're real, real accurate.
00:52:28So your match to the port is perfect.
00:52:30And a lot less labor involved in fabrication.
00:52:36Sure.
00:52:38But I'm sure that that's where some of the inspiration came for that look on that idea bike, except that
00:52:47it just looks like some tubing that was twisted round.
00:52:53Well, I mean, it doesn't have all the fine detail and the fasteners and the clean.
00:52:59Well, I mean, if you look back at, you know, particularly the pipes on Dan Gurney's All-American Racer, his
00:53:09Formula One car, all those Indy cars, those were sand-bent titanium tubes into wonderful contours.
00:53:16And why do we have the contours?
00:53:18We have the contours because they were going for certain lengths.
00:53:21And so they were trying, you know, I think we overly emphasize equal length headers because not every, depending on
00:53:28the engine timing, not every header should be exactly the same length.
00:53:31But you probably do have a bigger benefit than just having the long pipe from the first one meet the
00:53:39short pipe from the last one.
00:53:41Oh, yeah.
00:54:09Yeah, yeah.
00:54:11They wanted to do something outlandish with the K1600 platform, the inline-six touring platform.
00:54:18They make a bagger, an actual bagger, you know, and it's very American-inspired.
00:54:24And I think, you know, they're just trying to get a piece of that Harley market, which is always hard
00:54:28to get a piece of because Harley's Harley.
00:54:30Even if you're Indian, you know, your volumes are not the same yet.
00:54:37They're much smaller, yes.
00:54:38Well, there is a manufacturer whose name I will not give who inspired me to conceive.
00:54:56If you have a water-cooled engine, which works extremely well, it is thermostatic, it doesn't overheat, it warms up
00:55:09quickly so that it begins carbureting promptly.
00:55:15It is one of the modern flat black epoxy finish engines.
00:55:20Where are the fins, you may ask, pull them off of my roll of finned shelf paper, which is self
00:55:29-adhesive, cut to shape, and stick it on there.
00:55:35And you've got a, suddenly you've transformed your liquid-cooled industrial unit into an exciting air-cooled with lots of
00:55:46fins.
00:55:49Well, it goes back to the carbon fiber shelf paper, too, where you get that textured stuff that you can
00:55:53tack on to whatever you want.
00:55:56Like, you know, you go out to lunch and there'll be like an 87 Honda Accord with a carbon fiber
00:56:03trunk, but it's kind of, you know, carbon fiber shelf paper on the trunk lid.
00:56:07But it's like peeling off and, you know, we're just, we're all searching for a feeling.
00:56:13And if we can't afford the carbon fiber body panel in the aftermarket, buy a gum, we'll stick it on
00:56:19with glue.
00:56:21There.
00:56:22I wanted the fins.
00:56:24Of course, they would, they would be rolled, they would be on the roll, the fins would all be lying
00:56:30down.
00:56:30And then when you unrolled it, they would stick up properly and they would have buffed tips.
00:56:42But alas, but there, there is spray cheese still in the supermarket.
00:56:49Um, what could be more convenient?
00:56:53I think they call it cheese.
00:56:55Don't they call it cheese food?
00:56:57Cheese type food product.
00:56:59Yes.
00:57:00That's right.
00:57:02And I found that, that, uh, beef has that unnatural pinkness, not because of colorants that have been placed in
00:57:10it, but because of, of strange packaging methods.
00:57:18They include carbon monoxide, uh, as a, to, to enhance the natural redness of the meat.
00:57:27There are various packaging methods that will enhance the color because the colorants being injected, you know, uh, how old
00:57:38is this animal?
00:57:39Oh, uh, four months.
00:57:41Well, that's, well, that's not, um, what's the carry- работы that are built.
00:57:44Well, that's, what's the talking-aste?
00:57:45Well, not under the current law and we make it look red, while they can't do that.
00:57:50Naughty muscle.
00:57:53But if the styling of a motor vehicle suggests aerospace, we can't argue with it because that kind of sales
00:58:10motivation, that kind of emotional appeal demonstrably works.
00:58:14We may think of ourselves as rational beings, and we'd better be if we're trying to get our car out
00:58:21of a sand trap, or if we're trying to get an engine started that won't, we'd better be thoughtful.
00:58:33But when it comes to buying things, we're going to pick the one that looks the coolest.
00:58:44There we are.
00:58:45That's the kind of critters that we are.
00:58:49It is.
00:58:50Well, you look at the biggest sellers in the emotional markets, and it is an emotional purchase.
00:58:59You've got your Harleys, you've got your Royal Enfields.
00:59:04Ducati has its own way.
00:59:06Oh, absolutely.
00:59:08Absolutely.
00:59:09It says, you think you're rich, do you?
00:59:14Here's the accessory book.
00:59:17Check all the items desired.
00:59:19Yeah, they do have that segment, but they also have Scrambler, you know, where you can just...
00:59:25Well, yeah, sure, they're trying to cover the waterfront.
00:59:28But in times of financial restraint, shall we call it?
00:59:38One of the ways to continue doing business is to sell things, to promote things to the people who still
00:59:45have money to spend.
00:59:49And that's why, well, my dad was talking to a guy who was part of sales promotion for some consulting
00:59:58firm.
00:59:58And the fellow said, well, for instance, here are these two hand creams.
01:00:05They both contain the same ingredients.
01:00:08The liquid in these two containers is identical.
01:00:13This plastic bottle contains four ounces of it.
01:00:17This glass container contains one ounce and sells for 20 times more than the plastic one.
01:00:26And people pay it because it exudes quality.
01:00:33Cut glass, gold highlights, tasteful shape.
01:00:40I got this plastic bottle here.
01:00:46All set.
01:00:48Look great.
01:00:51All right, well, that's it, folks.
01:00:53That's styling.
01:00:54We're just simple primates looking to sparkle.
01:00:59I hope you enjoyed the program.
01:01:01Thanks for joining us.
01:01:03We will catch you next time.
Comments