Thank you!
Most bankruptcy hearings are pretty routine, most of the deals already having been cut in the lawyer’s offices and the judge granting the court’s approval. But this morning a normally too quiet courtroom was alive with the sounds of Buell and EBR riders who in no way were ready to let Buell and EBR slip quietly into the night. In person and by phone conference call, they objected to the cold blooded corporate murder of Buell and EBR, and the judge made rare exception to the corporate “business as usual”, refusing to approve the sale of EBR to a serial liquidator.
Continuance was granted until the next hearing January 14th, which gives us upstart Buelligans a month minus holiday distractions to come up with a plan. Given that the serial liquidators bid was a measly 1.6 million for an inventory of at least a couple hundred new bikes and the tooling to make hundreds of thousands more, even a fallback business plan to just provide parts and support to the installed base of EBR and Buell bikes is a viable business plan. And with millions already invested in engineering and tooling up for production, why stop there?
This is the kind of passion the world needs, the kind of passion that spits in the face of corporate mediocrity and kicks their corporate butts with innovative products and superior service. This is the kind of passion that HOG(NYSE) and their favorite serial liquidator cannot silence… Bring on the EBR revolution!
GearheadGrrrl 
Go Grrrrl !!!!! Too cool are you. Keep up the good work and please stay on the Erik Buell Trail.
Is it really a good thing to save Buell? When you think about it, another reboot of the company would only end in another failure. The biggest proponents of the Buell marque are guys who bought into the idea of an “American Sportbike” back when Harley Davidson owned the brand. In the late 90’s, patriotic, American, 30 and 40 year old males bought into the Buell dream of participating in a motorcycle marque that would beat the best of Japan and Europe at the track. I remember watching the forum at Bad Weather Bikers and guys waiting for the big day when Harley would engineer and release into Erik Buell’s hands a world class water cooled V-twin. It seemed as if it would only be a matter of time when Buell would have a real engine with real horsepower that American’s would be proud of on the street and at the track after Harley’s VR1000 debacle.
Of course that day never happened and those Buell owners from the late nineties and early part of this millennium are older now. Quite a bit older. Not too many of them have dreams of racing anymore or even being fast on the street. In their 50’s and 60’s now, they yearn for comfortable sport touring motorcycles and they themselves cringe at the idea of hauling their fat asses onto the latest EBR sport bike. In the mean time, “millennial’s” the current and future customers of sport bikes, have moved onto a different breed of two wheeled machine. These new motorcyclists need to express their individuality in cut up and customized vintage japanese machines or with ready made tribute bikes create by BMW, Triumph, Ducati, and Moto Guzzi. Buell, so intent on getting a water cooled engine and frustrated by previous owners at Harley Davidson completely missed the boat on the newest wave of the American motorcycle scene, sadly. After Harley Davidson, and with EBR operating as an entity, Erik Buell was so focused on racing success and a halo bike to launch the brand, he lost site of the current customer trend in the United States and ultimately failed the brand he created. With so much time having passed with the shuttering of EBR due to Hero’s neglect, the brand will never be able to recover without a cash infusion in the 10’s of millions. With an aging and dying customer base and with millennial motorcyclists completely indifferent to a brand that tries to differentiate itself with fuel in frame, perimeter brakes and “made in america”, Buell finds itself with a customer base that is marginal at best within the broader motorcycle market.
The real twilight years for Buell were probably right in the beginning in 1995-1998. Buell had just been bought up by Harley Davidson which was awash in cash at the time from a generation of boomers who finally had enough cash to buy the Harley of their perceived dreams. Hope for something great from Buell ran hand in hand with the U.S. economy which at the time was exuberant and strong from exploding trade with China and had yet to fall down to the dot com bubble in 2000 and then the 2008 mortgage crisis. Members of the Buell board at Bad Weather Bikers still lament the demise of the tube framed, air-cooled V-twin S2 Thunderbolt from this period and often refer to it as the pinnacle of Buell style and engineering. Of course the last year of the S2 was 1996, almost 20 years ago now, and those motorcyclists who admired that bike then are now more concerned about their health insurance premiums and the demise of America at the hands of the Democratic party as evidenced by the quantity of posts made on the forum dedicated to such banal matters.
From a business point of view, when your motorcycle brands biggest support group is a bunch of soon to be senior citizens who lament the end of carburetion and air cooled Sportster engines in your product, you have a problem. Erik Buell had his chance twice to captain his own ship. Both times the ship sank for Buell. I would expect nothing less if he were allowed to make motorcycles for the third time.
Greeat reading