The thing with the V-Rod platform that I don't understand is why the MoCo never made any attempt to move it beyond the cruiser genre. The V-Rod bagger that Chains picked up custom built by Cycle Visions in San Diego for Brad Pitt was an incredible motorcycle. Pitt is not a big guy (around 6ft 185lbs or so) and the bike reflected that. Mike Selby, the owner of San Diego H-D had a couple built using a bat wing fairing that felt a bit larger and certainly had a different look that Pitt's Road Glide based model. Then there were a couple of pretty radical choppers around San Diego based on V-Rods. Modified frames, ape hangers, old school seat and sissybar that were certainly appealing in their own right.
What bothers me having owned one is that the engine is incredible. While it may not have that potato potato idle, it had gobs of horsepower and more than enough torque (in case you may have heard otherwise) I find it incredible to believe that just as H-D has dumped the Buell, they are dumping the time, money and technology of the V-Rod. In my mind, the first thing they should have done is fit a V-Rod engine into a Buell. I can't imagine the sport bike crowd not liking a bike with the handling of the last Buells, peripheral braking and an engine like the V-Rod.
I guess it comes down to what I read on a thread somewhere on the site here where we all try to figure out what the MoCo's thinking is. Someone said that they'd been selling the same bikes to people for 112 years and been successful at it so why should they change. I guess until they start losing money and not selling bikes that philosophy will rule.
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Topic: V ROD gone soon (Read 6661 times)