Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge The Poll (You know the one)

Quote:

---

Look at the glorious names and brands lost forever in the British motorcycle industry. If Norton/Ariel/Velocette et al had taken the Japanese threat seriously and moved some production offshore we might have updated BSA Lightnings, Norton Commandos, Ariel Square 4's, and Velo Venom's to choose from today.

---

Maybe Bill, but then again, maybe not, unless the management of those old brit firms would have moved a much larger portion of their sales revenue towards their respective Research and Development Departments than what they did when England sold more M/Cs than any other country on the planet.

This was their final undoing. Mr.Honda's brilliance was the fact that a much larger portion of his revenues went into the making of a new and improved motorcycle every year. When the Triumph Bonneville was introduced in 1959, Edward Turner's basic design was already over 20 years old when it was originally introduced as the 1938 Speed Twin.

Think of what gains Honda made in the years from 1959 to 1969 when Brit Iron did "rule the roads". Honda went from a step-through little bike sporting all of 50cc's to the mighty CB750 four cylinder, a machine with a much more modern OHC design, horizonitally split cases that didn't leak oil, and a disc brake.(ironically, every feature on our present-day BAs) And this was mostly made possible by the fact that much more relative funding was poured into Mr.Honda's R/D Depts than what the bean-counters in Old Blighty were doing at the same time when they were making money hand over fist, and selling every Bonneville, Trophy, Lightning, Thunderbolt, Atlas, Commando, etc, etc, etc, that they manufactured in England, back during those heady times in motorcycling's initial "Golden Age".

Lack of foresight by the "Deciders" of the world has almost exclusively been the number one reason for failure in any endevour, not some perceived issues regarding a so-called disgruntled or overpaid labor force, otherwise known as the "Grunts".

Cheers,
Dwight
(yep....I like that new word "decider"...I'm gonna use it as much as I can)