Earlier this year from some resources I came to know that All the big Indian Motorcycle companies are going to make a huge upgrade with their previous models. All the major International models have now taken that major step. Yamaha’s flagship model, the YZF-R1 is now ready for an upgrade.
There is very little that can fixate the American public’s attention and dominate news cycles like rising gas prices (excepting maybe Charlie Sheen…). Scooters are heralded for their low costs and fuel savings and the “Rising Gas Price Fuel Scooter Sales” headline resides near the top of the newsroom go-to grab bag. Google alerts for the word “scooter” reveal one or two such cookie-cutter stories on a daily basis, often from small market TV stations or newspapers. Once the trend is set in motion, the momentum seems to feed itself.
The media fueling scooter sales is a phenomenon that’s not gone unnoticed by industry insiders such as Joel Martin. A former importer of brands like Malaguti Moto and SYM Taiwan, Martin is currently president of Martin Racing Performance – a scooter parts distributor for numerous brands including Asian imports (if you need a part for a Chinese-built scooter, Joel’s probably your best hope).
“I’ve been in the industry over 10 years. I have seen this trend happen every two to three years,” confirms Martin. “The media loves to grab rising gas prices and create this surge in scooter / motorcycle sales.”
PSYCHOLOGY OF SCARCITY
The argument for scooter as gas saver is based on sound logic. Buy a scooter, or fuel-efficient motorcycle, and save money in fuel costs. The higher the price of gas, the more alluring that fuel efficiency appears. Never mind the actual fuel-saving dividends will take years to pay off the principal investment, particularly if sourced only as supplemental transportation (read our real-world test of one scooter’s cost-saving claims in Scooting Thru Vespanomics 101).
On some level the fuel-saving sales hook plays on the general apprehension of oil as a finite resource. When a limited or unstable resource supply combines with increased demand, the average Joe doesn’t need an economics degree to figure the outcome. And while gas prices increase in the long-term, temporary or seasonal market spikes are met with foreboding. The gas hikes feel un-ending with fear that prices may never stop rising.
“The media hype made it seem like gasoline could go up forever so everyone started buying scooters,” agrees Martin when asked about the last great boom in the scooter market, during the summer of 2008 when prices tipped $4 per gallon. “As soon as gas went down the boom was over.”
A secondary scarcity issue made the 2008 boom a true scooter craze – a physical lack of units to sell. With some dealers unable keep up with the increased demand, the dearth of units, real or imagined, drove demand even higher as gas prices peaked. The constant media echo of pain at the pump only re-enforce the consumer’s worst fears, inspiring emotional reactions.
“The media hype played on that emotional set up. If you didn’t buy one you were missing out, or worse there wouldn’t be any next month,” says Martin, who notes a similar phenomenon in the current market. “The same is happening now with 2-strokes. Since its harder to get them dealers are getting a premium for 2-stroke 50cc units since all the distributors are out of them.”
The downside of the 2008 boom was, of course, the monumental bust that rattled the entire motorcycle industry (the US scooter industry plummetted 59% in 2009). Compounding the problem for scooter dealers, many had reacted to the 2008 frenzy by over-ordering, with the distributors and factories happy to play along. The result was a glut of unsold units once the economy turned south, with Martin noting: “That’s how some companies in Texas ended up with 20,000 scooters in a warehouse when the economy collapsed. Last I checked the same company still had 2000 units with 2008 VIN numbers which will likely finally sell this year.”
HOW TO FUEL A CRAZE
Queue up the present day situation, primed for at least a partial scooter revival. The unprecedented revolution sweeping the Middle East has generated uncertainty in the oil market. Once again the reality of $4 gas seems inevitable. The media chatter has been well underway for weeks now (it’s not unappreciated that this article will only contribute to the jabbering newsfeeds). Martin believes dealers must capitalize on the situation, brazenly encouraging dealers to fab up their own press releases to feed the hype. It’s a wag the dog scenario, but does it work?
“It does. Hype brings media, hype brings investors. Media brings foot traffic and customers,” says Martin. “One of the biggest problems facing the industry is the dramatic drop in sales and dealers closing. Nobody had access to capital, it’s boom or bust. So my advice to dealers: go crazy with stunts like that. If I ran a dealer I would blow up a car for the local TV station, dress up like an oil baron taking candy from kids, go on the local news driving an E-Scooter – whatever it takes to get attention to your little shop.”
The latest media cycle started to peak with the revolution against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The effect was notable for Martin too, who saw an immediate spike in interest from dealers looking for parts.
“Media brings more media. Stories of dealers selling out, supply chain problems all help. After the uprisings in the Middle East our parts phone line blew up from stores that had zero foot traffic in the weeks prior to the uprisings. Now we couldn’t beat them off with a stick – eight phone lines of stores looking for parts.”
The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan may have taken the media’s eye off Libya temporarily, stealing some of the momentum, but now it’s ramping up once again with US and UN-backed military intervention. (The Japanese situation may only fuel demand, with fears over production shut downs and parts shortages.) The stage is set and hurting dealers would be wise to heed Martin’s advice – get some attention and ride out this latest media wave for all its worth. With any luck, a craze is in the works.
The Second World War is over and the GIs are streaming home from the Pacific and European battles. They are young, fit and have led exciting – if somewhat dangerous – lives. Burning holes inside their uniforms are demobilization gratuities. They want toys to brighten their lives: sexy, stylish, exciting toys to celebrate being civilians again. What they want are light, fast, beautiful motorcycles. What they want is the most desirable bike on planet earth – the 650cc Triumph Thunderbird.
Let’s re-wind the tape slightly. In post-war America there was, in reality, only one manufacturer and that was Harley-Davidson. Yes, a few all American Indians were sold but in terms of what we would recognize as a dealer network there was H-D – and that was it.
British manufacturers had sold a few – a very few – bikes pre-war but these dribbled out mainly through British American Motors operating out of a tiny, and not very attractive, facility in Los Angeles.
In 1937, Attorney at Law William E. “Bill” Johnson saw a four-cylinder Ariel “Square 4” and fell in love with its complexity and elegant design. The four-cylinder Ariel looked outstandingly modern compared with the rather dull, side-valve Harleys with which he was familiar in his Hawaii home and Johnson was instantly hooked.
He bought a “Square 4” himself and, according to legend, purchased British American Motors simply in order to ensure a steady supply of spares for his new exotic toy. For the princely sum of $1800, Johnson became the sole importer for Ariel machines in the US.
With the Ariel franchise came, for free, Triumph – and the company’s autocratic, some would say despotic, Chief Executive Edward Turner. By some quirk of fate the urbane, sophisticated, Harvard educated Johnson and Turner, the ex-Merchant Marine seaman, self-taught engineer and hustler par excellence, became good friends. It was Turner who persuaded Johnson to take motorcycle importation seriously – and he did. Out went British American Motors and in came Johnson Motors Inc.
The relationship should have prospered sooner but the horrendous hostilities of the Second World War intervened.
Immediately after the war Turner left Meriden and went on the hunt for new markets. Whatever his failings as a designer, and even more so as a manager, Turner had the Midas touch when it came to recognizing markets and knowing, instinctively, what motorcyclists would buy. He saw the next Gold Rush happening in the Golden State – but this time it was a two-wheeled Mother Lode.
Not that Turner drove too hard a bargain. In 1946, he offered Johnson the sole rights to sell Triumph motorcycles in the US – provided Johnson Motors sold at least 12 bikes a year. The 12 machines could be sold anywhere in the 50 states. This was the perilous condition of the American bike market in 1946.
Johnson moved his business to the iconic setting on the junction of Vernon and Colorado Streets in Pasadena and opened what was, by the standards of the day, a high-tech luxury facility with large glass windows and air-conditioning. Johnson had launched modern motorcycle importation.
Pre-war, the 500cc Triumph Speedtwin, and its hotrod brother the Tiger 100, had been strong sellers for Johnson Motors. The problem was that these bikes were very British in look and feel: great for off-road riding and competition but high revving and frisky compared with Harleys. What was needed was a bigger capacity bike which retained all the verve of the smaller Triumphs but emulated the torque of Harleys.
Turner need little convincing and in 1949 produced the 650cc Thunderbird. This was not, as it is now sometimes said, a bored out Speedtwin but a new engine in its own right – albeit with extremely strong links to the pre-war Speedtwin he had designed.
The Speedtwin’s 63mm x 80mm motor was replaced by the much meatier 71mm x 82mm engine which gave an immediate power increase from 26 hp @ 6500rpm to 34 hp @ 6300rpm. But, in typically clever Turner style, the weight was barely increased, rising from 362 pounds to only 397 pounds – and this despite having a new gearbox, heavier duty clutch and a sprung rear hub.
Just as clever was that although the new crankshaft was housed in beefed up crankcases, these were externally of the same dimensions as the earlier engines and so fitted in the same frame used for the 500cc Speedtwin and Tiger 100.
Turner had a lot of confidence in the new bike and so set up a publicity stunt which was intended to get world attention. Three of the new bikes would be ridden from Meriden to the steeply banked, concrete speed bowl at L’Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry south of Paris. Turner had a lot of faith in the new bike – but still took no chances. He sent a test team to the track with disguised Thunderbirds to ensure that his ideas would work out in practice.
The test proved to be critical because the rough concrete surface at Montlhéry wore out the Dunlop rear tires in under 400 miles – a disaster when the public target was going to be a 500-mile speed test. The Triumph factory riders changed their riding styles to coax more mileage out of the Dunlops – and the stunt was on.
Part one was to ride three Thunderbirds from Coventry to Montlhéry – some 400 miles. The bikes did this effortlessly. The next aim was to set an average speed of over 90 mph for 500 miles – and that would be no mean feat on a modern Superbike. The first T-Bird ran at 90.30 mph; its sister machine at 90.93 mph and only the third bike had problems with a split fuel tank caused by the hammering handed out by the crude French speed bowl. Including repair stops, this bike still averaged a truly astonishing 86.07mph.
The three bikes were given a check over, and new tires, and set off for flat out laps of the circuit. Their speeds were just as impressive with all three averaging just over 100mph.
The stunt proved that not only was the new engine fast and reliable but the handling, courtesy of the new telescopic forks and rear sprung hub, was well up to high-speed use. The bikes were then ridden back to the factory without any problems – and the Thunderbird legend was born.
Bill Johnson was delighted and buying every Thunderbird the factory would sell him – but there was another slice of incredible marketing luck about to fall in his, and Triumph’s lap.
In 1953, Marlon Brando starred as the outlaw gang leader Johnny Strabler, in “The Wild One” – the first post-war bike film to have an audience outside the motorcycle community. Johnny’s attitude to life is summed up when a girl asks him: “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” Johnny sneers, “Whaddaya got?”
Clearly, as cool as liquid nitrogen, Johnny chooses not to ride a Harley, or Indian, but a Triumph Thunderbird. Product placement like this would cost $25 million today but, in public at least, Bill Johnson didn’t see the association as being positive for Triumph and threatened to sue the film’s producers. Behind the glass walls of Johnson Motors, things were very different and no-one was turning away orders from Brando wannabees.
So what of the T’Bird today? It’s a story of good news – and even more good news. The first good news is that the Thunderbird is one of the most pleasant, rideable and thoroughly charming classic bikes available. The engine spins into life with a single, easy kick and then the bike will do everything from potter around a bike rally at 5 mph to a genuine, reliable 70 mph cruising on the Interstate.
The clutch is light, effective and reliable and the gearbox is sweet too.
Compared with later classics, the handling is not impeccable but this is not a problem. The Turner-designed sprung hub, a very early – not to say crude – form of rear suspension causes problems if it isn’t in perfect condition but we’re not talking about a rival to a Manx Norton or Matchless G.50, rather a thoroughly competent all-rounder. The front forks are fine and the brakes, again judged within their context, are safe for modern traffic conditions.
Only its appearance militates against the Thunderbird being one of the great classics. The blue-grey Thunderbird Blue is not the most attractive color ever to leave Meriden and a shortage of chrome in post war Britain meant that the bike had a rather utilitarian appearance.
This leads to the second piece of good news. Currently, a really nice Thunderbird is going to cost around $10,000 – and that is one of the great bargains in the current classic market. If you want a practical, reliable classic the Thunderbird is the bike. Add a leather jacket, sunglasses and a sneer and you could be a retro film star too.
If you Love Comics, Just click
Bike 4 Ride 