Take this one with a grain of salt...
According to UK motorcycle outlet Motorcycle News, Harley-Davidson’s move into the popular adventure and street fighter categories has been delayed until next year.
The report comes off the back of the official H-D website – harley-davidson.com – altering the expected release date on both the Pan America and Bronx models which were previously slated for a late-2020 release.
Both the Pan America and Bronx are based around the all-new water-cooled engine platform dubbed the Revolution Max, with the all-new 60-degree V-Twin designed for a whole new range of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. So far these have been confirmed as a 1250cc unit in the new Harley-Davidson Pan America and 975cc in the Harley-Davidson Bronx Streetfighter.
While Harley-Davidson has dabbled in the sportier segments of the motorcycle market previously, most notably through axed subsidiary Buell, the company has never made moves into the increasingly popular adventure touring segment until now.
Part of the delay is likely due to Harley-Davidson’s new President and CEO – Jochen Zeitz – stamping his mark on the company as well as the impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Zeitz recently dropped the 'More Roads to Harley-Davidson' programme of his predecessor, the very programme that spawned the new models, in favour of the 'Rewire' plan which sets to alleviate Harley’s financial woes by refocussing the company.
While Harley-Davidson Australia has not commented on the supposed delay in the new models – our regional media access site still retains the original 2020 expected launch – it would make sense from a financial standpoint to see the launch of the bikes moved to 2021 and closer to the northern hemisphere summer to maximise potential sales.
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