Triumph’s Harley-Davidson clone war

MCN

Living Legend
Joined
Mar 19, 2010
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Do not adjust your eyes…these two bikes are new Triumph cruisers, not Harley-Davidsons; one of which will be launched shortly as a rival to the Harley-Davidson Road King, the other has been disguised as a Harley Electra-Glide. Look closely and...

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I gotta admit, that's pretty lame.

One of the reasons I love my Rocket is that it's not pretending to be something else. Even the Thunderbird had some of its own character. I'll be more than a little disappointed if we're going to see Triumph building direct knockoffs.
 
The Triumph USA marketing, advertising and promotional strategies, or more accurately, the evident lack thereof, have baffled me almost entirely since I bought my R3 nearly 4 years ago and they continue to underwhelm me to this day. Their dealership and parts network here is, to say the least, quite thin, to the extent that one can say pretty accurately that it lacks robustness or reliability.

It appears that we might add product development to that already questionable mix if the article above bears itself out. Understanding that growing their market share is virtually all-important, one still has to wonder why they would join the clones in such a transparent contemplated manner, rather than to further continue to develop the line on the back of a wonderfully distinct brand replete with excellent, substantially unique and eminently more refinable lineup of quality motorcycles?
 
And in any case, why not use the R3T as the base? Surely offering something actually different would be a better way to go, especially if its market share you want, than clones. HD riders want cubes too.

Tell me Jim, did you swallow?
 
And in any case, why not use the R3T as the base? Surely offering something actually different would be a better way to go, especially if its market share you want, than clones. HD riders want cubes too.

Tell me Jim, did you swallow?


Yes that would be a good start why start over like they are does not add up and then added to the Thunderbird but I'm not smart may be its easier to reinvent the wheel
 
One reason I first bought my Rocket is that it was different and definitely not a copy of anything else.

I doubt that these clones will sell well at all. On the other hand a real touring bike built on the R3 platform would probably sell as fast as they could built them.