The only time I can recall a one year model absence was when Chevrolet completely redesigned the Corvette for 1984, and there was no 1983 model. I had a 1982 Vette, the last year of the old Coke bottle - or to some, phallic symbol - body style. I suppose there have been other 1-year absences for redesigned models in auto and motorcycle history though.
Ken
Ken,
I've heard the rumor about the poor condition of the faring mold(s) on this site and several others. They may have two molds, maybe only the one. The mold cycle time for a faring like the RG is only a couple minutes. It doesn't take long to make their production run requirements with one mold and injection mold press. Most of the plants making these parts run their presses 24/7, but not always with the same molds installed.
The company I work for has a surface treating process that we only make. It's an open air plasma surface treating tunnel. When plastic parts are run through our electrical discharge tunnel, upwards of 250kv, the parts come out ready to paint without any primer at all. Some of HD vendors selling them plastic parts use our machines. We don't do black plastic parts as they tend to use carbon black as a colorant and carbon is conductive. Anything conductive inside an electrical discharge tunnel like ours creates a lightning show like nothing else. But not all black parts are colored with carbon black. Tier 1 vendors for Ford, GM and European auto makers, BMW, Mercedes, VW etc use our equipment. They can run steering wheel covers through our machines and go directly to paint minus primer. This saves them about $0.45 on each part. Times millions of parts, they've saved tons of money. However I digress...
I was a service manager at a Chevy/Pontiac dealership in the days of the Corvette '83 absence. I actually drove an '83 Corvette and did some fuel injection training on it at the GM Tech Center in Warren MI way too many years ago. They did have serial numbers on them, but they were only very early preproduction '84s and were all destroyed. Of course starting in late '42 production year, there were no '43, '44, '45 US production cars or trucks, only what was made for the military.
I'm still excited to see what HD does on the RG when it comes back in '15. I think that water cooling is inevitable on at least the touring models.