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"Victory and Indian use v-twins because that is what heavyweight cruiser riders like. Very simple."
No ******. Just so happens that's all that Harley Davidson builds. You know, that's the motorcycle company that OWNS 50% of the American market. That makes H-D the leader that companies like Indian and Victory follow.





o.b., enjoy the ride and ride what you enjoy. Two wheels and engine = good times.

Try not to drink too deeply from the HD marketing fountain though
There are numerous reasons to use V-twins for big displacement bikes, narrowness,
longer stroke with gobs of torque, tighter center of gravity to name a few.
"Copying HD" is not why they do it. That's just salesman crap.

They're not following HD, they're competing, and that's something HD is not used to. American made, classic name, true to older Indian v-twins appearance wise, high quality.
Frankly I think HD is afraid of the competition.
The real winners will be us, the riders

It'll be interesting to watch that whole "market share" thing over the next few years too.

Don't misunderstand, I like Harleys. They look cool, sound cool, fit and finish is second to none. In fact before I bought the Triumph I nearly dropped the hammer on a Dyna Sport.
So again, enjoy



Thanks bigbill, but I do not buy into the marketing... Polaris did though. Look, we know the 45deg V-twin is not the best arrangement for an air-cooled engine because the rear cylinder runs hotter than the front and there is no room for straight equal length intake and exhaust routing like there is on a parallel twin for example. So by design you have a 2 cylinder engine with a different volumetric efficiency for each cylinder. They have to invest considerable engineering effort working around this limitation. Modern bikes with sequential EFI are much better dealing with this than the simpler older carburetor bikes.

So why use it? There are rare exceptions of course but the 45deg V-twin looks and sounds right for a cruiser and cruisers are very popular in America. Kind of like how full size American pickup trucks are by far the best selling vehicles here but no where else in the world. Looks are very important and each rider has their own taste for example I don't like the look of a Ducati or BMW (except the BMW RnineT) but I prefer Harley and Triumph cruisers. Hey I knew a guy that had a bright lime green Kawasaki cruiser and he loved it but it just wasn't my style. Nothing wrong with that. Considered the Triumph Thunderbird very carefully and if I hadn't bought the Dyna it would have been the T-bird. Maybe next time especially if Triumph restyles the Bird just a bit.

Then there is that 45deg V-twin sound, is sound important to a rider? You bet it is, how many here still have the whisper quiet stock pipes on their Triumph? See my point? I installed Vance & Hines slip on pipes on the 103ci Harley and the sound reminds me of my old 1971 Mustang V8 when I'd take it to the track and open the headers. By today's standards a primitive low RPM pushrod engine that didn't make remarkable horsepower for it's size but it sure as hell belted out tons of torque right off idle! And that kind of vehicle can be very fun to drive.

Decades ago Harley-Davidson just settled on the 45deg air cooled V-twin engine design and stuck with it. Maybe some years just because they didn't have the money or resources to try other possibly better configurations and they just kept tweaking the design through the years, it became "the devil they knew." Remember Harley had some bad near bankruptcy years just like Triumph. Somewhere along the way the V-twin engine became synonymous with American cruiser motorcycles since that's all Harley the only surviving American motorcycle company built...after the death of the original Indian Motorcycles in 1953 of course.

Is a big V-twin Harley Dyna the fastest bike out there? Nope, isn't trying to be but it sure is fun using that easy low RPM torque to accelerate 0-60 or cruse at a relaxed 2,200 RPM at 60mph. Comparison test of the Dyna vs the T-Bird show nearly identical 0-60 and quarter mile acceleration times with the Dyna 1-tenth of a second behind the Bird at 60.

2011 Triumph America (10/2011 to 07/2014) 2012 Harley Davidson 1200C Sportster 2014 Harley Davidson Dyna Wide Glide