Somewhere on a desert highway, she rides a Harley Davidson. Her long blonde hair flying in the wind. She has been running half her life. The chrome and steel she rides colliding with the very air she breathes.
Neil Young sang that. The Hells Angles have been big fans. Warren Buffet has put in a few hundred million dollars into the company. The late Evel Knievel, that extraordinary stuntman, tried to jump across the quarter-mile wide Snake River Canyon on its back, with two rocket engines strapped along the sides of his ride. He bespoke American grit and heroism, of which Harley Davidson became an icon not long after it was founded in 1903. But, as with all of America’s greatest corporations today (like Coca-Cola and Apple), this company also finds itself increasing reliant on international markets, on countries like India. Motorcycle sales here have been growing at 23% a year, as of this September. Double-digit growth is expected to sustain for another decade. Yamaha, Suzuki, Ducati and others have already put plans in place to make the best of this window. Harley Davidson is still a revered brand in the US; no question. But the recession has taken its toll. It doesn’t help that the company never managed to make real inroads into the female or youth demographic. Last year, it tried to popularise the cheaper Sportster: About six bucks a day. Cheaper than your smokes, a six-pack, a lap dance, a bar tab, another tattoo, a parking ticket. As its Indian production becomes operational next year, the company will have to move further down the economy highway. However much India may keep shining, it will never give a Rs 3.5 million bike the same play as say the Rs 35,000 one.