The Motus: V4 Sport Touring Bike, US Made

Here's another for you:

Motus MST-R Prototype Sport-Tourer Review- Motus Motorcycles

 

Saw the bikes at the Laguna MotoGP...I wasn't very impressed. These types of projects rarely gain traction and it's never fun to be part of an owners club where the company bought the farm a couple years after spending that kind of money. Now you can go on and on about supporting American companies at all costs, Erik Buell, Michael Czysz, blah, blah, blah. These folks didn't strike me as being in the same zip code as these guys. I wish them luck, hopefully they will still be in business 5 years from now.





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I read about it in a mag and if I recall correctly the engine is vaguely a scaled down four cylinder version of the GM LS7. All I can say is that thing sounds incredible, too bad the VFR1200 doesn't sound like that...

 

Kinda sounds like a low-revving VFR, at least on the speakers on my laptop. :biggrin:

Pratt & Miller supposedly used some of the design elements from the racing version of the LS1 in the Motus; but I'm sure Chevy would have a problem with anything significant being used. Besides, it would be tough to scale anything major from a 7-litre V-8 down to a 1.6 litre V-4.

As far as whether they'll make it - it depends on their investor backing more than anything. So far, so good.

 

wish them well, but I can't imagine they can be sucessfull

 

All that and I haven't even sat on one, squeezed the levers and made vroom-vroom noises?


"Imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny
Makes a bee think of honey just as I think of you


Imagination is crazy, your whole perspective gets hazy
Starts you asking a daisy "What to do, what to do?"


Have you ever felt a gentle touch and then a kiss
And then and then, find it's only your imagination again?
Oh, well


Imagination is silly, you go around willy-nilly
For example I go around wanting you
And yet I can't imagine that you want me, too"

Van Heusen/Burke

 

+1 on that. Shame that these up-start builders of modern bikes in the US have such bad luck. I deam of the day an American company can build a marketable bike thats now a V-twin dinosaur.

 

Henderson failed because of criminally stupid management. Indian is still kickin'. Czysz never had a real chance what with the completely unconventional design approach. Buell is being kept alive by Erik himself, and we can all hope he makes it - even if only as a boutique builder of high-end sportbikes. Victory is thriving as a direct competitor for HD.

Hmmm....

The US market seems to prefer the HD/Victory 'form before function' style, which makes it tough for any potential competitor in any other market; but perhaps 'sport touring' is one such market. Motus has a better shot than most because of their investors, and the concept of a sport touring bike using a 'brute force' motor. IMHO, of course.

 

Hey Buell is back at least, which at least to me, is very surprising. Whatever happened to the others, Roehr (sp?) and MotoCyz was supposed to make a ICE sportbike. Then there was the Norton restart up in Oregon who was making some nice looking bikes for a while too. Who else, I know there were more. I think, and it is just speculation that these guys have an even harder road ahead of them.
1) The economy is sh*t compared to where it was 5+ years ago, when those others struggled. This means less money for investment, and less disposible cash for the public to buy the product. Sure there are still people out there that have it, but they are rarer and rarer.
2) being completely stand alone, they have no economies of scale, which makes their cost of production high compared to a similar bike from one of the big boys.
3) I for one would be more hesitant to buy a new name sport bike or cruiser than a sport tourer. Don't know if I am alone in it. But a sportbike or cruiser is far more likely to stay fairly close to home. quick day ride is the norm for both bike styles. If you ran into trouble, you are close to home and possibly your local dealer. But a sport tourer? I am supposed to be able to take that out for long rides, possible days and days of riding. But how many dealers are these guys likely to have in the first few years? I am guessing that there will be many states without a single dealer in them, or in the state next to them. That can really ruin a trip, if you have a problem and have to have the bike and you towed hundreds and hundreds of miles to reach a dealer. And I would think you are more likely to have an issue because the parts and bike as a whole have not been tested nearly as much as the BIG boys. So you are more likely to need help, and less likely to find it. Not a good combination in my book. I mean people complain about BMW not having enough dealers, and they are an established brand. There are people for whom this isn't an issue, of course, but I don't know that there are enough of them to hang a whole brand on.

but hopefully I am wrong

 

Yeah, I really liked Excelsior Henderson when they started up a few years back there. Even blew some fun money on a few shares of the stock. Very pretty bikes IMHO, although I never liked the girder front end, just never looked right to me somehow. But other than that I liked nearly every model, and they really put time into the details including paint and the chrome were all top notch. But they were just horribly run, like you said, nearly criminally. Those guys acted, and spent, like they already had a successful business, instead of working at building the business into something successfull. I actually toyed with the idea of buying it, it sold for stupid cheap, like 12 million or something. But I would have no idea how to run it better, well, maybe a little better than they did, and I really didn't want to move to Minnesota, been there, seen it, froze my a$$ off.

Indian is still kicking - sort of. Just in my time it has had at least 6 owners, maybe more. But if we just concetrate on the recent history, that was a little successfull, you still can't really draw a line as they closed down a couple times. You had that guy that went around getting investors in like the 90's, raised a bunch of money, but spent even more and didn't have a penny for the actual bikes. The name was sold to an investor from overseas I think. Then like 10 years later, you have the name pop up in Gilroy, CA where they were making clone bikes, but with an Indian logo and fenders. They actually made and sold bikes, although no bikes that they designed in the real sense. They were getting ready to change that and working on a proprietary motor and two model designs that looked good, at least to me. Then they went belly up, I have no idea what happened there. But the business didn't just change hands, the shop and everything in it was auctioned off piecemeal. Production stopped totally. Couple years go by and the name pops up again, some British guy who had never ridden a motorcycle before, but knows the name, knows it has value and he has a history of taking historic well pedigreed names and updating them and making a profitable business out of it. They say they aren't going to build clones, and will use what the Gilroy company started as a jumping off point to build there own bikes. Sounds good, sounds like a 2nd John Bloor of Triumph fame. Don't think they sold too many bikes in the last 2 years or so, bikes looked OK, not great IMHO, but were quite a bit of cash. Like I want to say $25k+. Now that endevour is over, as it was recently announced that Polaris is buying the business. Although this time it is more of a handoff, and not a total shut down and disappear for a while.

The US market really does prefer the cruiser style motorcycle -- by far, than any other style bike. I mean HD was the top seller in the US a few years back, I have no idea who is now, but Harley knocked off Honda, who had been #1 for a long time and HD only makes and sells one style of bike, which makes it all the more impressive, or frightening depending on your view. They were #2 for a long time before they hit #1 with just one style of bike.

 

If ol Spike ever buys Honda, I am gonna buy the first Harley I see. Hopefully it will be an M.V. Agusta.. Then again in terms of reliability IMO, we can count on him to insure that venturing out on a mass produced sport tourer of a certain flavor will get us back to the old homestead without frying a regulator/regulator in the middle of nowhere.

Long lists of motorcycle manufacturers that did not make it are available for not only US made but of other manufacture.

BB says, "Those who do not know thier history should not invest in the NYSE or expect to have a high GPA."

 

They actually sold their bikes and design back to an English company, who is reselling the 961 design still, and making newer bikes as well, down the road. They are rumored (and on the list from the FIM) to be entering MotoGP next year, and cannot actually be a CRT, as they will be full factory.

Norton Motorcycles (UK) Ltd: Welcome

HD no longer owns any interest in MV Agusta, and has not for over a year.

"On October 15, 2009, Harley-Davidson announced that it would divest its interest in MV Agusta. On August 6, 2010, Harley-Davidson announced that it has concluded the sale of its subsidiary, MV Agusta, to Claudio Castiglioni and his wholly owned holding company, MV Agusta Motor Holding, S.r.l.

MV Agusta announced that for the first three months of 2010 bike sales went up 50% "

Pure hypocrisy, and ironic as well, since you didn't even know that HD no longer owns MVA. Echo says, "Learn of what you are going to speak about, before you speak of it..."

 

The acid test is whilst sitting astride one of the mules is to twist the throttle, squeeze the levers and go "vroom-vroom" no fewer than three times to qualify as an expert.. Bikes at shows that are static are prepped. Even "riders" that show up at various events are prepped. Track testing by the motojounalist crews are short and carefully monitored. This is big business and they pay dudes a ton of money to predict all they can about we, the buying public. The operative word would be IMO, "Orchestrated."

Eventually it filters down to some of we mere mortals who luck out and get a pretty good ride on a new bike. For those with little or no recall, I point to your ride on the 1200 as an example.

A few years back at the CW show in Seattle, I was walking around with a guy in my club who knows one hell of a lot about bikes. One of the new startups had a display of thier "new" bikes. This got by me completly, but the guy I was with figured out the bikes felt light was there was zip in the cases. No crank, no pistons, rods or even gears in the gearbox. Some showbikes ie "choppers" are done this way too.

 

Hardly took an absolute bath on MV, bought it for top dollar, the paid the new/previous owners to take it back. Didn't know about the sales numbers, not a total surprise though. Still think the prettiest bike I ever rode was a buddy's Senna edition MV, just brilliant IMHO.

 

Saw the bikes at their racetrack tent. Meh. Couldn't get close enough to examine it because the same AARP crowd that had mobbed the VFR 1200 had moved their act to the Motus tent. Pushrod motor was all I needed to know about it, half a Chevy V8 is what it looks like.

They should have hired some leggy skanks in spandex shorts. That seemed to be the "Motus operandi" for marketing anything there.

Maybe they'll bring them to Indy since the whole Midwestern touring blah blah .....and I'll get a chance to look at it without having to shove Grandpa out of the way

 

LOL! BB sez, Ol Gunny ought to read "the book" before interpreting it or at least make some attempt to develop a sense of irony along with a sense of humor. Once to that stage, still don't believe everything you read or hear on the net. That ain't real smart.

Here's where you fuck up and get all puffed up like a big ol frog and start posting shit that you think you know.

Yes, HD did own MV for awhile. This was not their first or perhaps even their last foray into the world of Italian Motocycles. Returning to what I said, tongue in cheek if you would come off that noob high horeshit you are so proud of, the irony is that thanks, but I have had my Harley, have custody of a vintage racer and if we follow your illogic to conclusion, it assumes that no MVs were sold during the brief ownership of the company, therefore no such bikes exist?

Dude, take a chillpill some Exlax and go on sick call in the morning.

The Norton guy's name you are struggling with is Kenny Dreer.. For inside info, try
"The Norton Club" in Seattle or Portland.. or even where you hang your hat.

 

Is it true that in Caintuck some granpappys are only 20? Know them by they mullets.

 

If you have those figures it might be interesting to see them. I always wanted to ride a Munch Mammoth.

 

"My hypocrisy goes only so far.

(But) I'm your huckleberry...

(As) It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds."