Triumph Seeing Red Ink ?

[eekadog]

well let's hope they right the ship....maybe the rocket III wasn't the best investment.



well the good news is that the dollar has been doing well these past few days.

[waepoint]

Without knowing anything about their sales or production costs, I'd have to question Triumph's development of the Rocket III. Sure, it's a huge media hit that's graced the cover of every bike rag, but how many are they actually going to sell? It's clearly a bike geared to the US market where displacement is king, but I doubt many Harley guys are going to dump their proven FatGlide DynaKing in favor of what is essentially a novelty bike. And the publicity around the Rocket doesn't seem to have much leverage for putting people on Thruxtons or Speed^3's or Sprints either since they are all completely different market segments. The Rocket III represents a lot of R&D and marketing dollars that could have been spent promoting their existing product lines.

[eekadog]

i don't think displacement is king here....Harley is king...apparently 1450cc is still cutting the mustard.



i must agree with the novelty bike comment...it doesn't have good lines and the bold styling will likely go the way of MC Hammer pants.



with that said...I think the baldwin auto cycle is much better looking at pulling the giant engine thing off.

[eekadog]

i guess i have to give credit where credit is due...you could buy almost 6 rockets for 1 baldwin.



i'd never buy either one (especially the 85k 4 cyl)



then again i don't know if you could make the RIII look better in my eyes than the baldwin with the extra 70k...i just don't like the design...but whatever floats your boat.

[maloosik]

Fourth Post!! woohoo my first.



Triumph needs to patent the sound of their triple, sell more clocks, lighters, bandanas, t-shirts and have more people get TRIUMPH tatoos...that'll fix 'em.

[obandoj]

What about toilet seats? The Motor Company makes a load on those!

[mile_eater]

Clearly you don't know any canadians. The place only stays above water because we keep them there.



As for the dollar crashing into hell and gone... it's not so complicated as trade deficits... We're just printing to durned many of the things.



of course... don't look for that to change.

[nator]

Hmm... Was really considering the new 2005 Sprint ST to replace my aging 2000 VFR (it got the bigger motor upgrade that Honda should have done when it re-designed).



But I wonder how this news bodes for reliability/build quality and future support for a new bike purchased.

[trumant]

I'm also seriously considering buying a new Sprint ST. I own a Sprint RS now and thus far dealer support has been great. Whether I buy a new Triumph or not, I'm crossing my fingers that the dealers stay happy and well supplied.