HARLEY-DAVIDSON is a brand synonymous with big V-twins, extrovert styling and more tassels than you could shake your leather chaps at.
But the American giant has been in trouble for a couple of years now. An aging customer base, no new blood coming into the brand and then tariffs applied to the Milwaukee bikes have all meant drastic changes are needed. And fast!
Well, is this the first of the new breed of small capacity, Asian market Harleys? Spotted on Japan’s Young Machine website, we must admit it looks great. It’s a rendering, there’s no doubt about that, but the detailing of the nuts, bolts and other fittings is very good. We'll leave it to you to decide if it's genuine or not!
Looking like a KTM Duke 390 with a flatrack seat unit, the bike has a single front disc with what could be a ByBre caliper. Ducati Scrambler style upswept exhaust and what looks like the smallest fuel tank this side of a speedway bike. It's thought the actual bike will be a 500cc and built in conjunction with the builders of BMW's G310, Indian firm TVS.
The frame of this rendering is a mix of cast and tubular sections with a gloss black subframe supporting the (very small looking) dual seat. The headlight looks like an LED mounted in a number board and the front fork gaiters are unmistakably Harley-Davidson!
The thing is, with Harley’s recent global recall of 230k bikes looking set to cost them in the region of $35m, it’s hard to see the already struggling factory ever getting any new models to market. Not until the stock price starts to rise anyway.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
