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As an enthusiastic owner of a Buell XB9SL, the news of Harley-Davidson’s October 15 announcement to “discontinue the Buell product line as part of its strategy to focus on growth through the Harley-Davidson brand” comes with shock and disappointment.

The Buell motorcycle company has made an impressive number of design and technological innovations over the past 26 years. Additionally, the company is somewhat of a maverick and folk-hero in the American motorcycle industry.

Buell has been increasingly successful in the racing circuits as well, winning top-level races and championships against more established Japanese- and European-maker teams. In fact, Bruce Rossmeyer’s Daytona Racing/RMR/GEICO Powersports rider Danny Eslick won the 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing Daytona SportBike championship at New Jersey Motorsports Park on September 6, 2009 ( click here for press release ).

Watch Buell Chairman and Chief Technical Officer Erik Buell’s defeated and emotional announcement of Harley-Davidson’s decision to close the Buell subsidiary at Buell.com.

I, personally, am disheartened. As a Buell rider, my appreciation for the high level of engineering and design in these motorcycles is deep. Sadly, this is not the first maker of well-designed and appreciated motorcycles to go out of business. It certainly won’t be the last. Dispite Harley-Davidson’s unfortunate decision to discontinue the line, I sincerely hope that Erik Buell will be able to find a way to bring the brand back to life in the future and continue to design, engineer and build excellent motorcycles.

Tags: american motorcycle, bruce rossmeyer, buell motorcycle company, buell motorcycles, chief technical officer, danny eslick, disappointment, erik buell, folk hero, geico, harley davidson, impressive number, maverick, motorcycle industry, motorsports park, powersports, racing circuits, rmr, sportbike, technological innovations

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.