“In a surprise move, BMW has sold their motorcycle operations to Harley-Davison,  effective April 1st. As a BMW exec explained “Pardon please, my english not the best. We and HOG’s board were coincidentally having strategic planning retreats at adjoining mountain chalets in the Alps over New Years. Snowed in for several days by this year’s brutal winter, we spent considerable time comparing our motorcycle marketing. After a while we realized that we were selling different motorcycles to similar aged poseurs with different fantasies. Like the Harley buyers that bought a lifestyle but rarely rode, we have a well off demographic that buys a Dakar replica bike then cruises the Interstates and road racer wannabes that buy an SS1000 then park it in front of trendy cafes. We should have seen the trend years ago, when we saw that we could put the BMW name on mediocre automobiles and Americans would suck them up as status symbols. Looking at HOG’s success in meeting the low expectations of the poseur markets, we thought it best to sell our motorcycle operations to HOG and concentrate our efforts on better marketing our SUVs and activewear collection.” In a related move, the obsolete BMW “airhead” parts inventory and tooling will be donated to the Airheads motorcycle club and a tax writeoff taken.”