Inside BMW: From skunk works to Motorrad Days

[Administrator]

Original Article:
Inside BMW: From skunk works to Motorrad Days

Please discuss the Motorcycle.com article Inside BMW: From skunk works to Motorrad Days in our Motorcycle Forums below. Use the reply button to let others know your comments or feedback on the article. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, along with your thoughts and personal opinions on the bikes and products we have tested.

[mscuddy]

Bmw Sucks!

[Kevin_Duke]

Sarcasm, right...?

[jmdonald]

A world class write up for a world class manufacturer.As I wait for other print publications again MO supplies me with a great read online real time.BMW offers a full line of mouth watering products and all world class.Keep up the good work gentlemen.I believe there will always be room in my garage for BMW.

[pplassm]

Garmisch is beautiful. I used to ski there a lot. Lots of great riding, too. Too bad it's all in Germany.

[Kenneth_Moore]

And we have Harley, content to pump out yet another iteration of the same damn bikes they've been building for over a century.

BMW seems a lot more willing to re-invest in themselves and their products. Look at what they've done in the past few years: they basically invented and own the ADV catagory. The S1000R blew away decades of Japanese domination of superbikes for the masses.

Maybe Harley has an R&D center, but I'll bet it's full of stylists figuring out the newest paint job for their old bikes, and not engineers building a new engine design.

[seruzawa]

Originally Posted by Kenneth_Moore

And we have Harley, content to pump out yet another iteration of the same damn bikes they've been building for over a century.

BMW seems a lot more willing to re-invest in themselves and their products. Look at what they've done in the past few years: they basically invented and own the ADV catagory. The S1000R blew away decades of Japanese domination of superbikes for the masses.

Maybe Harley has an R&D center, but I'll bet it's full of stylists figuring out the newest paint job for their old bikes, and not engineers building a new engine design.

Maybe getting shorn from HD will be the best thing that ever happened to Buell. It'd be wonderful to see Eric selling a load of performance bikes. Maybe that'd give the HD stockholders the impetus they need to dump their CEO.

Harley-Davidson CEO gets $6.4 million pay package in 2009 « The Daily Reporter

[Kenneth_Moore]

Originally Posted by seruzawa

Harley-Davidson CEO gets $6.4 million pay package in 2009 « The Daily Reporter

Good grief, that is insane. "The company ended the fourth quarter with a loss $218.7 million, its first quarterly loss in 16 years." If that's not enough to get the guy dumped, what is?

Then again, GE's value dropped by 2/3 under Jeff Immelt (he's the genius who dumped GE Plastics and several other "boring manufacturing divisions" in favor of GE Captial, which got killed by mortgage securities fiasco) and he got paid a One Quarter Beellion Dollars (insert Dr. Evil sound bite here). He's still at the helm.

[jmdonald]

It looks like corporate America is running under the delusion that they must keep certain CEO's or their business will be even worse. Kind of like we saved 3 million jobs. From a realist perspective incentive should be based on profitability.Not to be confused with profit at any cost.I have no doubt Harley Davidson fears becoming a business modeled like BMW.They dissolved Buell and could not develop the V-Rod engine without outside help.They do not seem interested in developing their business past their historic offerings.Pitiful just pitiful.

[Kevin_Duke]

Originally Posted by Kenneth_Moore

Maybe Harley has an R&D center, but I'll bet it's full of stylists figuring out the newest paint job for their old bikes, and not engineers building a new engine design.

I was amazed at a Harley press launch a few years back as engineers explained to me how much effort they put into making their engine covers look so good. Concentrating on aesthetics has merits, but there wasn't a lot of discussion about advancing the state of their current mechanical engineering. Still, it's tough to argue with big sales.