Could Donald Trump's jab at Harley-Davidson have been more perfectly timed?

A few weeks ago – perhaps in response to a (really!) fake news story that Matt Levatich had called Donald Trump a moron – Donald Trump really did lash out at Harley-Davidson.

Part of Harley-Davidson's stunning new strategy is an entire range of EV motorcycles and bicycles.

Harley-Davidson's old core customers have, until now, also been overwhelmingly supportive of Donald Trump. It seemed strange that Trump would attack the company, but I almost thought The Donald was using a classic cult-leader's technique, of forcing his followers to give up something they love.

Well, this morning Harley-Davidson announced a sweeping set of changes that, in short, mean that it is once and for all really becoming a modern international motorcycle company. Harley-Davidson's, and Donald Trump's base will hate the motorcycles Harley-Davidson will begin releasing in 2020. But Matt Levatich has bet his company (and it goes without saying his reputation) that he can replace those old customers with new ones who would never consider anything Harley makes now.

The timing of the Donald Trump/Harley-Davidson breakup couldn't be better. Harley-Davidson's like half a couple that, after a divorce, goes on a diet, starts working out, and buys a new wardrobe.

Will it work? Maybe, maybe not, but way back in 2014 after I rode the first Livewire, I realized it was Harley's only shot. The company's finally taken it. It might be too late, but it took guts to do it at all.

No Harley's Matt Levatich didn't call Trump a moron. Trump, however, is hitting back anyway.

Trump: I thank Harley for building in America from CNBC.

What a difference a year makes, eh? Shortly after he took office, Donald Trump met with Harley-Davidson executives and union leaders, taking the opportunity to describe Harley as "...an American icon; one of the greats." Now, the company finds itself in a feud with the Bully-in-Chief.

Last week, an unsourced quote ostensibly from Harley-Davidson's CEO Matt Levatich flew around the Twittersphere.

“Our decision to move some of our operations is 100% based on President Trumps tariffs. Mr. Trump knows nothing about economics and even less about trade. The man is a moron.”

I knew the moment that I read it that it wasn't a real quote, and frankly, everyone else should have known, too. (In the limited defense of people who believed it, Levatich did, before the last election, criticize the Republican primary field in what was likely a thinly-veiled insult to The Donald.)

Harley-Davidson, in frantic damage control mode, issued a strong denial.

The matter should have ended there, but it seems not to have ended, because this morning, Donald Trump responded with something that isn't a fake tweet, attacking Harley-Davidson.

There are about seven levels of bullshit in this, beginning with the fact that Trump cites 2017 sales figures, figures from a year when Harley execs put on a fawning display on the White House driveway for Trump and Pence -- after which Trump thanked Harley for building so many bikes in the U.S. (If you want a point-by-point explanation of just how stupid this tweet is, go here.)

Harley-Davidson faces a host of challenges, not the least of which are increased costs of materials and new tariff barriers as a result of Trump's trade policies. As a Kansas Citian, I'm bummed that they're closing the plant here.

This iconic company may not face an existential crisis, but it's not far off. Whenever I'm at a gathering of motorcycle journalists and motorcycle industry executives, the topic of "What can Harley do?" inevitably comes up, and few if any of the assembled 'experts' have any good ideas to offer. I, for one, actually have high hopes for the 'Livewire' project, but I'll breathe a sigh of relief if that even happens.

This story's not going away today, either; since my original post I've even heard about it on NPR. What should Harley do? Nothing, for fuck's sake. Just wait, head down, until Trump turns his attention somewhere else.

That said, I can't help but wonder whether, some day, Trump will attack some American icon and have his supporters finally decide it's beyond the pale. I can only dream... In the meantime, the last fucking thing Harley needs is Trump kicking 'em when they're down.

There will be motorcycles in Super Bowl ads. There just won't be any ads for motorcycles, and that sucks

As the Super Bowl approaches, TV advertising becomes a topic of conversation because ordinary consumers recognize that it is the ad industry's "big game" too.

For years, Master Lock—a small company, compared to most Super Bowl advertisers—dared to blow their entire annual media budget on a single commercial in the game. It was always the same basic spot; a guy shoots a bullet clean through a Master padlock with a high-powered rifle, but the lock holds. That advertising strategy helped Master build a solid brand in that category, and it was proof that taking an expensive risk—because Super Bowl spots are very, very expensive—also delivered a big reward in terms of customer awareness and recall.



Every year, I bemoan the fact that no motorcycle manufacturer has the balls to run an ad in the big game—the kind of ad that would reach a wide audience with the goal of not just selling a bunch of bikes, but selling the very idea of motorcycling. Surely it's not that the sport of motorcycling doesn't lend itself to advertising. If you can make a great TV ad about a padlock, you sure as hell could make one about a motorcycle.

I've already written about Honda's famous 1964 "Nicest People" campaign. That campaign broke during the Academy Awards telecast, which was the most valuable ad time in the world, at that time. (The first Super Bowl was still three years in the future, and it would be some time before the NFL grew into the commercial behemoth it is now.)

Honda hired Grey Advertising—a top ad agency in the 1960s. One of the problems with motorcycle advertising today is that manufacturers have chosen to work with agencies which are not in advertising's big leagues. The one notable exception was Harley-Davidson, but even they dropped Carmichael-Lynch after years of excellent creative.

In 1964, Honda spent $300,000 on its Academy Award ad buy. Corrected for inflation, that's about $2,500,000 in today's money. So not quite in present-day Super Bowl ad territory—the nominal cost for a 30-second spot in Super Bowl XLIX is about four million bucks.

But look at it this way: $300,000 was the equivalent of Honda's gross revenues on 1,200 units of its best-selling motorcycle.

I don't know what American Honda's best seller is today, but whatever it is, I bet that if the company was willing to spend 1,200 times that revenue, it could afford a spot in Sunday's game. Obviously, the people running the company today are playing with deflated balls, compared to the guys calling Honda's plays in 1964.

Ironically, I also bet that more than one ad will feature a motorcycle cameo. All kinds of other brands include motorcycles in their spots these days, because they know motorcycles are hip and all-round awesome. Think about that: the guys making those other brands' ads are using valuable screen time to show you motorcycles they don't even sell, just to make whatever they are selling more appealing. Imagine how excited those Creative Directors, Copywriters, and Art Directors would be, if they were ever given the chance to advertise a motorcycle.

You know that cool ad agencies are full of hipsters who already commute to work on caféd-out CB350s and chopped Ruckuses. Or is the plural of Ruckus, 'Rucki'?

Irony #2: Loctite is advertising in this year's Super Bowl. Yes, Loctite. They sell those little tiny bottles of goo, that you put on your nuts, before screwing.

Sorry, that was a cheap shot, but I couldn't resist it. But seriously folks. Loctite dares to risk an obviosly huge chunk of its marketing budget, promoting a product—shit, a category—that most Super Bowl viewers don't even know exists.

You know who does know what Loctite is? Everyone who works in the motorcycle industry. I hope they're paying attention to Loctite's sales numbers and awareness over the next year.

Entrepreneur #1 - Soichiro Honda; an individualist in a nation that prized conformists

The son of a village blacksmith, Honda was exposed to bicycles when they were brought into his father’s shop for repair. He had only a primary school education, but showed a striking aptitude for both engineering and business. Before starting the Honda Motor Company to make motorized bicycles in postwar Japan, he had already built up two successful businesses, one supplying piston rings to Toyota, and another making propellers for the Japanese air force.

Soichiro Honda, some time around 1964 (judging from the bike.) Although he was really more of an engineer than an entrepreneur, he had two great business instincts. One of these was that he knew when to get out of the way; he retired in 1973, in his 60s, even though he could have remained at his company's helm indefinitely. Even more important, he knew how to delgate...

...leaving the day-to-day operations of the company in the hands of Takeo Fujisawa, who has joint custody of my greatest-motorcycle-entrepreneur-of-all-time honorific. Arigato, Honda-san and Fujisawa-san.

Mr. Honda was anything but a typical Japanese businessman. A rugged individualist, he refused to participate in the “keiretsu” alliances between companies, which typically gave big banks a strong influence in business decisions. When virtually all Japanese motorbikes had noisy, smelly two-stroke motors he decided to make a four-stroke. That typified a willingness to plan and invest for long-term success even if it meant ignoring prevailing “wisdom.” One of the motorcycles that benefited from that insight was the Super Cub step-through. It was introduced in 1958 and is still produced almost unmodified today. Honda recently sold the 50 millionth Super Cub, making it the best selling vehicle of all time.

Entrepreneur #2 - George Hendee; two-wheel demon, and dreamer

George Hendee saw the advantages of electric starters for motorcycles, and argued with his chief engineer, Oscar Hedstrom - pushing him to include the newfangled feature in 1914. The electric lights and starter in those models were disastrous, and Hedstrom left the company in frustration. Hendee himself was forced out of Indian a couple of years later, although without him, sales gradually decreased.

Hendee was one of the most successful bicycle racers in Massachusetts at the turn of the century – at one point, he won 302 races out of 309! He started a company making his own bicycles, which sold well, thanks to his racing reputation.

Many of the very first motorcycles were “pacers” used to train bicycle racers. They were typically unreliable but Hendee noticed that Oscar Hedstrom’s ran very well. In 1901, Hendee approached Hedstrom and told him that his dream was to start a company devoted to making motorized bicycles. They called their company Indian, and in short order it was America’s leading motorcycle manufacturer. In 1912, Indian sold over 20,000 units.

Entrepreneur #3 - Arthur Davidson; built H-D dealer network

While his friend Bill Harley and to a lesser extent the other Davidson brothers provided the technical know-how, the early business success of Harley-Davidson was largely due to Arthur Davidson. In 1910 he set out to enroll a national network of dealers. He also recognized the importance of factory-training for dealer service staff, and the importance of advertising if H-D was ever to surpass Indian in annual sales.

Entrepreneur #4 - Vaughn Beals; resurrected Harley-Davidson

By the mid-‘70s after years of AMF mismanagement, Harley-Davidson had lost almost all customer loyalty and profits were in freefall. When a group of company executives led by Vaughn Beals offered to buy the division for $75 million, AMF quickly agreed.

After the 1981 leveraged buyout, Beals led an amazing corporate turnaround. He funded new product development and implemented world-class quality control. It’s impossible to know what would have happened to the H-D brand if Beals had not risen up to save it, but it’s certain that no one else could have done a better job at rehabilitating it.

Entrepreneur #5 - John Bloor; rebooted Triumph

Like Harley-Davidson, Triumph was a company that had fallen on hard times – more than once. In the 1920s the company made an ill-fated move to produce cars as well and in 1936 an entrepreneur named Jack Sangster drove a hard bargain, acquiring the motorcycle business at a good price. Sangster’s business instincts nearly make him worthy of a place on this list, too. He hired the brilliant Edward Turner and after turning a handsome profit on sales, sold the company to BSA for another big payday in 1951. 

The Triumph marque found an unlikely savior in real-estate developer John Bloor.

From the mid-‘70s through the mid-‘80s Triumph died an agonizingly slow death. The brand would have vanished altogether had John Bloor, a real estate developer, not bought the old factory in Meriden. Against all advice, Bloor decided to build a new factory in nearby Hinckley. He spent millions designing new motorcycles that were unveiled at the Cologne Motorcycle Show in 1990. While those first “new” Triumphs got mixed reviews, the company has shown a remarkable willingness to go its own way, producing a line of unique machines that once again have earned it a devoted fan base.

Entrepreneur #6 - Count Domenico Agusta; kept racing in Italian blood

A marvelous promotional poster, produced to celebrate an all-MV podium in the 125cc class at the 1955 Gran Premio d'Italia. The Count with Carlo Ubbialdi (top step) Remo Venturi, and Angelo Copeta.

The Count ran MV Agusta during its heyday between the end of WWII and the early ‘70s. During that time, the company was really a helicopter manufacturer with a small motorcycle subsidiary. The road-going motorcycles they made would never warrant including the Count on this list, but thanks to his own fierce pride and competitive streak, the company also funded the greatest Grand Prix racing team of all time.

When the Japanese factories began to dominate in the late ‘60s, they drove out most of the Italian marques. By lavishing funds from the helicopter business on his racing team, Agusta single-handedly preserved Italian racing honor.

Entrepreneur #7 - Malcolm Forbes; nothing and everything to do with motorcycles

Forbes was the son of America’s first business magazine publisher. After heroic service in WWII, he came home to work at Forbes Magazine, although he nearly became the Governor of New Jersey – he won the Republican nomination but lost the election. So what does running Forbes Magazine have to do with motorcycles? Nothing.

Forbes was a tireless promoter of motorcycling, with a knack for angles that would appeal to mainstream media. Here, he poses with Liz Taylor. Ironically, while Forbes was successful at breaking down some of the social stigma of being a biker, he never came out of the closet - although he was frequently seen in the gay bars and bathhouses of New York. I often wonder if he bought his first motorcycle to go with the leather outfits he already wore...

Forbes discovered motorcycling in the 1960s. He bought a motorcycle dealership in New Jersey, which became one of the biggest shops in the country. Using his high-level business connections, he worked tirelessly to establish motorcycle riding as a respectable pastime. He was an extremely effective political lobbyist always ready to defend motorcycling from legal assault. With his media-savvy background, he managed to plant scores of motorcycle stories in the mainstream media. The social acceptability of motorcycles today owes much to Malcolm Forbes.

At #8 - Floyd Clymer; eccentric serial entrepreneur

Clymer was already famous as a young teenager – at 13 (in 1909) he was the youngest Ford dealer in the country! He went on to become a winning motorcycle racer and soon had a dealership for Harley-Davidson and Excelsior motorcycles in his home state of Colorado. He was an innovative marketer and one of the first people to sell motorcycles to police departments and delivery businesses. In his early 20s he began publishing his first motorcycle magazine. 

Curiously, it was after Clymer sold Cycle Magazine that the U.S. moto-mags started getting things ass-backwards.

His career was put on hold when he served a year in federal prison for mail fraud. He had been offered a chance to plead guilty and avoid prison altogether but he always claimed he was innocent and refused to admit a crime he didn’t commit. When he got out of prison he took over the distribution of Indian motorcycles on the west coast. Here again, he had marketing savvy, arranging for Indian motorcycles to appear in films and lending them to Hollywood stars. When Indian faltered in the ‘50s, Clymer desperately tried to save the brand but failed. He also was briefly the importer of the eyebrow-raising Munch Mammoth motorcycle.

Last but not least, he was the publisher of Cycle Magazine from the early ‘50s to the mid-‘60s and ran a very successful business publishing motorcycle repair manuals.

Entrepreneur #9 - How 'the ice-cream man from hell' built the world's coolest museum

The Morbidelli V-8 is tucked away in a corner; the Britten gets a little more limelight. The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum houses what can, at least arguably, be called the best motorcycle collection anywhere. There’s absolutely no doubt that it’s the best motorcycle museum. The 140,000 square foot facility, set in the middle of a 720 acres ‘motorsports park’ was built between 1999 and 2002, and cost George Barber about $60 million.

What’s striking about the story of Barber’s collection is that it all came together quite recently. He was no Sammy Miller, who’d been on the scene for donkey’s years. Barber only bought the first bikes for the collection in 1988. The fact that it’s now grown to over 1,200 bikes reflects another side of this white-haired gent with a honeyed drawl; he’s also fiercely competitive.

Barber’s dad operated a large commercial dairy in Birmingham, after WWII. He wasn’t necessarily a spoiled rich kid, but he was pretty rich. As a young man in the 1960s, he raced Porsches at Daytona and Sebring. He didn’t treat it like a hobby; his rivals called him ‘the ice cream man from hell.’ When I interviewed him, forty years after he’d hung up his helmet, he still took pains to make sure I wrote down the number of wins he racked up: 63.

The 'ice-cream man from hell' in one of his Porsches.

 When his dad turned over the company to him, George channeled his competitive instincts into the business and, over the next 30 years Barber Dairies’ annual turnover reached $300 million. With no time to race, he started to acquire a few collectible cars.

Funny story about how the collection took shape: Barber had a fleet of delivery trucks for the dairy business, and a garage where the company maintained them. One of the garage employees, a guy named Dave Hooper, was due to retire. Barber worried that Hooper was the type who, without anything to do, would just wither and die, so he asked Hooper to restore a couple of cars.

It turned out that experience beating delivery trucks back into shape wasn’t that transferable to aluminum race-car bodies, and those first restorations didn’t go too well. It was Hooper who suggested that they try restoring a couple of motorcycles, and George went out and bought a 1953 Victoria Bergmeister and a ’59 Panther for his pensioner to work on.

At the museum, when they tell this story they emphasize that, at that point, George had a minor epiphany. He’d always worked on his own race-cars, and he fell in love with the way the bikes’ working bits were not concealed behind bodywork; he could see the suspensions, frames and motors. Talking to him, I could tell that was true for what it was worth, but something else also came out: that old competitive streak.

Even with his substantial resources, by the late '80s, the price of desirable collector cars meant that George would never have the world’s best car collection. He couldn’t even afford to assemble the world’s best Lotus collection; that was billionaire territory, and he only had, oh, hundreds of millions.

“But I realized,” he admitted to me, “that I could have the world’s best motorcycle collection.” He sold off his cars, and set out to do just that, and as quickly as possible.

He bought a warehouse near the dairy. In a year or two, all the floor space was filled and Barber built 20-foot racks to store them several bikes high. Although it was nominally open to the public, the collection was in pretty sketchy neighborhood and few people visited; it was one of American motorcycling’s best-kept secrets. I had friends who sought it out, and came back awe-struck. He was collecting and displaying motorcycles on shelves, the way other people displayed toy bikes. Around the world, collectors and curators grumbled about an upstart American – ice cream man from hell, indeed, who’d upset the collecting apple-cart. He was accused of single-handedly inflating the market for vintage bikes. 

Barber, more recently, with an ex-Surtees MV. He did have enough money to acquire the world's very best motorcycles...

Rival curators just didn’t get it; it was a competition and George was winning. The rest of it was only money. In 1998, Barber sold his company. That meant he had even more cash to spend on bikes, but that he had to move his collection out of the old warehouse, which went with the business. That’s when he bought an abandoned gravel pit on the outskirts of town, and decided to build the best motorcycle museum in the world, to house the best collection. If there was a downside, it’s that with the collection’s small staff fully occupied, he withdrew from AHRMA racing; for years his rivalry with Rob Iannucci’s Team Obsolete had defined AHRMA’s premier classes.

When his park – trust me, it doesn’t look like a quarry any more – and his track, and his museum were finished and his collection was installed, he gave it all to the city of Birmingham. Talk about your gracious southern gentleman, eh? George Barber maintains an office at the museum, but he doesn’t spend too much time there. He’s the kind of guy who’s always looking to the next challenge, and he’s busy with other things. The last time I talked to him he was preoccupied with some big real estate development projects. That’s the competitor coming out, again. After you win, you celebrate one night, and then focus on the next race.

If you haven't been, you owe it to yourself.

Ten entrepreneurs who made things happen

It’s hard to make a good motorcycle. Maybe it’s even harder to make money making motorcycles – but if it wasn’t possible to do so, we’d have nothing to ride! Over the next couple of weeks, I'll post short bios of ten of the most influential motorcycle entrepreneurs.

At #10, “Big” Bill France – promoted the Daytona 200

France is best known as the father of NASCAR and the builder of Daytona International Speedway. The city of Daytona Beach convinced the AMA to hold the 200-mile national championship race there in 1937. After a few lackluster years, it seemed Daytona would lose the race, until France (a mechanic and beach racer - in cars) was convinced to become the promoter. He continued to promote the race until, realizing that it could not continue on the beach, he built the speedway. He opened his track in 1959 and the AMA saw the light and moved the race there two years later. Under France’s control, the race became an international sensation. Over the next ten or 15 years, it became the only American road race with really 'international' stature; Hailwood, Agostini and a host of GP stars often came over to race there. Bill France died in the early '90s, and his son, Bill Jr., took control of the Speedway

Bill France, with his son Bill France Jr., who was an avid motorcycle racer in his younger days.

A friend of mine recently told me a story about going to meet Bill France Jr. shortly after he took over the family business. By that time NASCAR was already a big business, but the most prominent racing photo on the office walls was a shot of Bill Jr. racing a Bultaco short tracker. Over the last few years, many in the motorcycle racing community have been dismayed by some of Daytona Motorsports Group's handling of AMA Pro Racing, and some have wondered if the current head of the family dynasty has lost his love of motorcycles. I think it's more likely that, since NASCAR is so much more important to the dynasty than is motorcycle racing, he simply has to delegate.