IT MUST be a nightmare to be a product-planner at any firm that makes consumer goods, particularly something like motorcycles that are so heavily influenced by fashions and external forces like legislation.
We’ve already pointed out a few of the bikes that sold in greater numbers than we might have expected last year, and now here’s a list of machines that, for one reason or another, have failed to manage the sort of sales that you might have expected of them.
Instead of looking at just one year’s sales, we’ve taken a spread of machines offered over the last decade that haven’t flown out of showrooms despite showing a lot of promise. Obviously the list is subjective, since it’s not defined by bare figures but also by the judgement as to whether the bikes deserved to do better. Certainly there are bikes that sold in even smaller numbers, but many were intentionally limited-edition machines or simply bad bikes that got all the success they merited.
If you’ve got your own suggestions to add to the list, feel free to add them in the comments below.
All figures come from the DfT’s official registration statistics up to the end of 2013.