"One Man's Imperfect Quest to Build Sportbike in America"

[streetfighterx]

One Man's Imperfect Quest to Build Sportbikes in America - Wes Siler

Too long to post, but here are some of my favorite parts

In 1987, Erik was smuggled aboard a cruise ship that Harley had rented for its annual dealer meeting. There, according to CycleWorld, a group of dealers and former racers helped pitch the idea of a sport bike range to the Motor Company’s executives, suggesting Erik could do

What a badass, although something like that was probably a lot easier in 1987

So, they came up with the harebrained scheme of lopping a cylinder off that Sportster motor and designing a new bike around it. It was also a scheme that would see Harley make money on each motor it sold to Buell, then Buell took a net loss due to the extreme cost of re-engineering it. The end result was one of the ugliest, most boring bikes ever made: the Buell Blast

HA!

To compete with the rest of the world, Buell desperately needed a liquid-cooled motor. He originally developed the V-Rod engine with Porsche for that purpose, but Harley ended up perverting that project for its own ends.

I did not know this. Those blastards!