Big News from Harley-Davidson - Selling MV Agusta / Shuttering Buell

All of the details I have on this come through the MV Agusta Factory Club based at the MV factory in Varese, Italy. So, here is what the press release had to say about MV Agusta:

“Our objective in acquiring MV Agusta last year was primarily to expand our presence in Europe, and was a recognition of MV Agusta’s proud legacy. While growth in Europe and other global markets remains highly important to us, we believe that focusing our efforts on the Harley-Davidson brand is the optimal path to sustainable growth,” said Matt Levatich, President and Chief Operating Officer of Harley-Davidson Motor Company.

And, it goes on to say:

Harley-Davidson will now begin actively looking for a buyer for MV Agusta to continue along the development of the brand as an outstanding manufacturer of premium, Italian performance motorcycles.

That could be good news as many MV Agusta owners were a little scared by what H-D might do to the company. However, if this is the end of their involvement, as it looks to be, it would seem that they did nothing but improve it.

The title of the press release said this:

As part of this strategy, the Company will divest its MV Agusta unit and also discontinue the Buell® product line.

It looks like this will also mean the end of Buell, which is very hard to believe given all of the new products and the investment in running the brand in the AMA/DMG racing series in the US. Perhaps it will simply be sold...

After all of what happened, it seems that H-D just let themselves grow beyond their own comfort level and now that the economic reality has set in, they are dumping anything which does not add big $$$ to their bottom line. It's really sad when a motorcycle company starts basing all of their decisions on money alone - where's the passion? Where's the love? Some companies would risk small profit margins to produce good and well-liked machines, but some just have to be slaves to Wall Street - and, H-D is one of the latter now...

Link to Press Release: http://tinyurl.com/yfeddyf

This Explain's the Buell part of this: http://tinyurl.com/ykrmcxm