Help me save Harley Davidson from itself. Have Harley lost their way?
Harley has spent decades searching for its next audience. Perhaps the answer lies in rediscovering what made people want the badge—and giving them something new to want beneath it. This isn't a brand bashing blog - the opposite in fact. Help me inspire change from a brand that represents motorycle culture.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in Harley-Davidson’s board meetings over the past fifteen years. In my head, there are a dozen immaculately shaved executives in expensive suits, several long-haired marketers explaining what millennials apparently want, and a presentation containing the words “brand evolution” at least fourteen times. Somewhere outside, a bloke who has ridden his Harley to Sturgis every year since 1997 is wondering what the hell they are talking about.
That is a caricature, obviously. I have no reason to believe Harley’s management has never ridden a motorcycle, and plenty of talented people work there. Yet from the outside, some of its decisions make you wonder whether the business and the people who buy its motorcycles are having entirely different conversations.
The latest announcement brought that feeling back. Harley-Davidson is ending its factory participation and official team support in MotoAmerica’s King of the Baggers after the 2026 season. Crucially, it is not abandoning bagger racing: it plans to expand the FIM Harley-Davidson Bagger World Cup in 2027, alongside a grassroots competition programme. This is a change of emphasis, rather than someone switching off the lights in the racing department.
Nevertheless, it raises a question that has bothered me for years. Harley can make people watch its motorcycles. Can it still make enough new people want to own one?
Watching an enormous touring bike being wrestled around a circuit is certainly entertaining. Convincing a rider in Northampton, Naples or Nice that their next motorcycle should be a Harley requires a rather different sort of persuasion. That is where I think the brand has been struggling—and where this admittedly ambitious bit of creative mischief began.
A long search for the next Harley customer
Harley’s attempts to reach beyond its traditional audience started long before electric motorcycles appeared in the showroom. Its relationship with Buell reached back into the 1990s, bringing innovative American sports motorcycles into the wider business. Here was a route towards riders interested in handling, performance and something distinctly different from the Japanese establishment. Harley ultimately discontinued the Buell product line in 2009, during its retreat towards a more concentrated Harley-Davidson strategy.
The circumstances were difficult, and hindsight makes everyone an excellent chief executive. Even so, Buell remains a revealing chapter. Harley had access to a different kind of motorcycling customer, then closed that particular door. The Buell business operating today is independent of Harley-Davidson; it should not be confused with a continuing Harley sports division.
LiveWire opened another door, this time towards electric propulsion and a much more contemporary image. I can understand the logic. A manufacturer cannot assume that the technology which sustained it yesterday will sustain it indefinitely, and developing an electric motorcycle was hardly an irrational response to the direction of the automotive industry.
The harder question was whether an expensive electric motorcycle offered something Harley’s existing audience wanted, or something a sufficiently large new audience wanted from Harley. Removing the familiar engine character meant surrendering one of the brand’s strongest emotional selling points before the customer had even reached the price tag.
The financial results illustrate how difficult that journey has been. LiveWire reported 653 electric motorcycle units in 2025 and a $73.8 million operating loss in its electric motorcycle segment. Unit volume improved over 2024, but this was still a small motorcycle business carrying substantial development and operating costs.
Calling it a tax write-off or somebody’s vanity project would be speculation. Calling it a convincing reinvention of Harley’s appeal would, to my mind, require rather more evidence.
Then came the Pan America, which deserves a fairer hearing than the easy joke about Harley suddenly discovering muddy roads. Adventure motorcycles offer the comfort, performance and versatility many riders now want from an expensive bike. Harley entering that market made sense, and its liquid-cooled Revolution Max engine demonstrated that Milwaukee could produce something substantially more modern than its traditional image suggested.
I cannot reasonably criticise Harley for failing to adapt and then dismiss every departure from its familiar formula. The Pan America is evidence of adaptation. My question is whether the wider range makes that evolution feel coherent, desirable and unmistakably Harley, particularly to someone approaching the brand for the first time.
Its smaller motorcycles pose a similar question. The X440, for example, is manufactured by Hero MotoCorp in India—a distinction worth making before we lazily describe every overseas-built Harley as Chinese. Hero reported more than 25,000 bookings within a month of its unveiling, so the claim that nobody wants a smaller Harley would be equally lazy.
Smaller capacity is not inherently the problem. Overseas production is not inherently the problem. The problem arises when a motorcycle feels as though its principal connection to the brand is the badge attached to it. A lower price should make the Harley experience more accessible, rather than leave customers wondering how much of that experience they are actually getting.
The badge cannot do all the work
There are considerable pressures here that no marketing campaign can magic away. Tariffs, borrowing costs, manufacturing expenses and reluctant consumers make expensive recreational purchases harder to sell. Harley’s own results recorded a 12 per cent decline in worldwide retail motorcycle sales in 2025, while increased tariffs contributed to pressure on its manufacturing margins.
Emissions requirements have also forced change. The familiar air-cooled Sportsters disappeared from the European range for the 2021 model year as Euro 5 arrived, removing motorcycles that had provided an accessible and recognisable route into Harley ownership.
Nor would it be accurate to say Harley has a complete absence of technology. The current Sportster S offers a liquid-cooled engine, a TFT display and electronic rider aids, including cornering-enhanced systems. Harley can build modern motorcycles. The issue I am interested in is whether the combination of product, price and presentation is winning over the people it needs next.
Dealer concerns matter too, because a dealership is more than a distribution point for a brand built around belonging. Reporting on Harley’s American dealer network has described consolidation, disagreements over stock and the expense of showroom requirements. Those relationships are part of the customer experience, especially when buying the motorcycle also means buying into a community.
For me, that community points towards Harley’s greatest asset. Its extraordinary achievement was making a motorcycle represent something larger than transport.
Easy Rider, Terminator 2 and even Wild Hogs helped put Harleys into the public imagination. Their roles were very different, but the association endured: an American motorcycle, an open road and the possibility of becoming a slightly more interesting version of yourself. You did not need to understand engine architecture to understand the appeal.
I would not claim those appearances were all carefully orchestrated product-placement victories. Their cultural effect is what interests me. Harley became recognisable to people who had never ridden anything, let alone a cruiser. It gave the motorcycle a life beyond the showroom.
For plenty of us, that created an idea of eventual ownership. We might spend years on sports bikes, nakeds or adventure machines, then look at a Harley and think that perhaps the time had come. The danger is allowing “eventually” to become the entire recruitment strategy. A brand also needs motorcycles people want now, while they still have other riding ambitions.
Triumph offers a useful lesson
Triumph is an obvious comparison, particularly from a European perspective. It has substantial heritage, a recognisable identity and customers who care deeply about both. Yet a Bonneville, a Street Triple and a Tiger can appeal to very different riders without requiring the company to pretend they are all the same person.
Its modern classics are especially relevant. Triumph has developed a family around familiar visual cues, then offered different expressions of them. The Speed 400 and Scrambler 400 X extended that approach into smaller-capacity ownership while retaining an identifiable relationship with the wider range.
My reading of that strategy is that heritage becomes useful when people can participate in it. A rider can buy into the look, character and social world of the brand at different stages of their motorcycling life.
That does not mean Harley should copy Triumph, or that Triumph gets every decision right. It suggests that an old name can accommodate new customers when the products give them a clear reason to belong.
Harley already possesses the ingredients: custom culture, racing history, mechanical presence, recognisable design and an unusually strong emotional identity. I would like to see those ingredients applied more convincingly to the sorts of motorcycles people around me actually consider buying.
Retro roadsters, café racers, flat trackers, bobbers and accessible scramblers seem fertile territory. They allow customers to express themselves without necessarily committing to a huge touring machine, an adventure-bike lifestyle or an electric future.
This is also why I remain unconvinced that racing baggers should carry quite so much of the burden of making Harley look exciting. The spectacle has earned its supporters, and the riders deserve enormous respect. I am simply more interested in the motorcycle waiting at the dealership after the spectator has stopped watching.
If I could pitch to Milwaukee
I am a marketer by trade, with years of motorcycle industry experience. I have also spent enough time around riders, dealerships and bikes to know that a good photograph cannot rescue a poor product indefinitely. Equally, a capable motorcycle can struggle if nobody feels a connection with it.
That is why projects like this are fun. I love the industry, and I want its iconic names to keep giving us reasons to care. Having spent a considerable amount of time questioning Harley’s direction, it seemed only fair to imagine what I would put in front of its board.
My starting point would be a range that makes the next generation of customers curious while giving existing owners something recognisable to hold on to. The traditional Harley rider would still matter. So would the rider who has never previously considered walking into a Harley dealership.
The campaign began with a deliberately cheeky line: “There are now two V’s in Davidson.”
Yes, Davidson contains one V. The additional V is a visual conceit, linked to an imagined V4 family and expressed through a new interlocked VV emblem. It is intended to provoke a second look and provide a story worth explaining.
The V-twin is inseparable from Harley’s identity. Keeping the V acknowledges that relationship; adding another suggests a future beyond the familiar engine layout. The emblem retains the connection with the bar-and-shield outline, while the two angular V shapes give the proposed family a more contemporary signature.
I wanted it to feel related to Harley rather than look as though somebody had bought a generic logo template and changed the company name. It should work on a fuel tank, a jacket, a dealership wall or a rider’s T-shirt, because the campaign needs to extend beyond an engine specification.
The crucial point is the relationship between the product and the story. A new emblem achieves very little if the motorcycles beneath it offer no new reason to pay attention.
Why a V4—and where it would lead
Choosing a V4 is the most provocative part of the exercise. To some people, it will immediately disqualify the motorcycles from being Harleys. I understand that reaction; engine configuration carries genuine emotional weight here.
My imagined answer is to retain V-twins within the range while giving a new performance family its own character. The V4 would underpin the café racer, flat tracker and premium sports bike, with different outputs and intentions. The idea is to explore a shared platform rather than invent an unrelated engine for every design.
In a real development programme, shared architecture might offer efficiencies, but a common engine would not make radically different motorcycles cheap or simple to produce. Cooling, packaging, chassis design, homologation and manufacturing would all need serious work. I am proposing a creative direction, not claiming to have completed that work on Harley’s behalf.
The café racer would lead the launch because it makes the proposition easiest to understand. Its traditional silhouette, stitched seat, wire wheels and optional bikini fairing offer familiarity, while the imagined V4 supplies a different level of performance. It is the bike I would place prominently in the campaign to begin a conversation with riders who appreciate classic style but still want an engaging contemporary machine.
The flat tracker translates that performance into a more upright, usable package. Its emphasis would be on mid-range delivery, accessible proportions and the sort of presence that makes you turn around after parking it. Flat-track inspiration also creates a connection with Harley’s racing heritage that feels relevant to the road bike itself.
The bobber keeps a large V-twin at the heart of the range. Long, low and menacing, it celebrates the custom-bike appeal that Harley already owns, while imagining a more purposeful combination of chassis equipment and contemporary detailing. Existing customers should see something they understand, rather than feel that the entire relaunch has been designed to make them unwelcome.
The scrambler provides a more accessible route in. Its job would be to attract riders through usability, character and a manageable ownership proposition. I wanted a bike that men and women could picture themselves riding, without the campaign deciding in advance what either group ought to want.
Harley Davidson 2027 Cafe Racer Concept Get Ben Riding Harley Davidson 2027 Bobber Concept Get Ben Riding Harley Davidson 2027 Trail 650 Concept Get Ben Riding Harley Davidson 2027 ARV2 Supersport Concept Get Ben Riding Harley Davidson 2027 AR1000RR V4 Superbike Concept Get Ben Riding Harley Davidson 2027 Flat Tracker V4 Concept Get Ben Riding
Then there are the sports bikes: a V-twin version and a more ambitious V4 flagship. These are the wildcards, aimed at people who might otherwise never give Harley a thought. The V4’s purpose is to create excitement around the brand; the twin explores a less extravagant route into the same sporting idea.
The detailed proposed specifications, equipment and pricing are in the brochure. Here, I am more interested in whether those motorcycles give the range a convincing shape—and whether you can see a place
for yourself within it.
Help me save Harley Davidson from itself. Have Harley lost their way?
Help me save Harley Davidson from itself. Have Harley lost their way?
The market potential would need testing. Attractive renders cannot establish demand, and enthusiastic comments are not purchase orders. What they can do is expose which ideas make people curious, which feel credible and which fail to connect.
That would be my next step as a marketer: put the bikes in front of riders and listen. Existing Harley owners, Triumph customers, sports-bike riders, newer licence holders and people returning to motorcycling would all bring different expectations.
The campaign would then need to show the motorcycles participating in recognisable riding lives. A café racer on a British Sunday morning, a flat tracker at an event, a scrambler being used throughout the week and a sports bike on a circuit all provide opportunities to tell stories.
I want to see Harley appearing in conversations beyond the people already committed to it: in road tests, films, creator videos and the photographs riders share because they love their own bikes. The modern equivalent of that effortlessly cool rider in a white T-shirt could be anyone. The motorcycle has to make them feel something worth showing.
This entire range is fictional. The images were created with AI assistance, and the motorcycles are not necessarily economical, technically feasible or suitable for production as drawn. It is a bit of fun developed by someone who cares about the industry, not an official Harley announcement or a business proposal.
I would rather the imperfections in an imaginary motorcycle did not swallow the more interesting discussion about what people want from the real brand.
Download the brochure and have a proper look.
Which motorcycle would you want Harley to build, and would you genuinely spend your own money on it?
Which models would you like to see produced by Harley Davidson?
0%Cafe Racer V4
0%Flat Tracker V4
0%Trail 650
0%AR-V2
You can vote for more than one answer.
Tell me which design misses the point, what the range is missing and whether the VV idea respects the badge or takes it too far in thew comments secton below!
If you already own a Harley, your response matters enormously. If you have never wanted one, I am equally interested in whether anything here changes that.
Share the story with someone who will have an opinion, leave your feedback and give it a like if you want to see this conversation reach more riders. I would love it to reach Harley-Davidson too—not because I imagine Milwaukee needs me to run its product department, but because the people deciding its future should hear what might make us want to be part of it.
[Download the concept brochure] · [Watch the video] · [Tell me which bike you would buy]
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