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But for fun, maybe you'll enjoy this Merlin music a bit better. Man they used that engine sooooo many classic planes.
Not to contribute too much to the off-topic side of this, that P51 mill is a sound of alarming loveliness. There's a small airport not to far from where I live that houses a WWII warbird club. One of the guys there has a Mustang, and I was lucky enough to be driving by as it rolled onto the runway one day, so I parked and watched. And listened. Man, when that think hit its stride and pointed skyward, the hair on my neck stood up so hard it tore the tag out my shirt.
If you ever get out toward DC, you simply must hit the Udvar-Hazy air and space museum at Dulles airport just west of the city. They have quite the collection of airplane engines on stands, and that's nothing compared to the actual collection of air/space craft hanging from the rafters.
H
The Shop
Your cheap jibe at British engineering and car industry is pathetic
http://www.hummingbirds.net/lucas/index.html
The Japanese have dominated MX manufacturing for decades, with KTM as a fairly solid "us too" from Austria.
Certain people in the industry could make a very marketable motocross bike if they rose to the challenge and would see to
potential.
It would have to be someone who has been in the industry for a long time. Someone with the reputation for winning, and someone who was uncomprimising in design and execution. Someone who had MP for initials,...
What an awesome legacy for someone to produce an enduring Motocross brand that would last for generations after he was gone. It could be done, it would be profitable and it would be the coolest exclamation point on an already accomplished life.
Question is, will he do it?
More importantly, thank you sir for your service.
Having said that....fuck you mstock. Since you are already so close to the border, please fucking renounce your citizenship and get the fuck out of the USA...and take your liberal socialist loving unions with you.
RobinUK...I respect you and your opinions....especially your artistic motocross related achievements. However, why come to an American moto website with this shit, unless you just like to stir the pot in the off season?
To everybody else...fuck it boys and girls....it's race weekend and that track in Vegas looks fuckin bitchen as hell!
That aside, let's turn the question and ask then, with all the engineering acumen that the Brits have, where is their motocross bike? Or for that matter, you point out the German engineering excellence yet they don't have a bike either, do they? You could try to claim Austria is the same thing to the stupid American yet my Austrian friends would beg strongly to differ (except when it suits them - then they want to be on the same team).
I guess my larger point is that I tire of listening to Europeans take jabs on us on this board all the time. Lommel this, wait till next year that. You don't need to bring us in to have the conversation - if that's really what you want to have. Every other country except Japan, and now arguably Austria, doesn't have a dog in this fight. And I think the points brought up pretty clearly explain why: not enough margin to justify the risk in capital. Regarding us, you have clearly already stated your opinion that we don't have any engineering talent, so I guess it's no surprise that we couldn't produce such a bike.
In Europe you pay more taxes?
Old wives' tale?
this carries over into their side by sides and atv's. they are awesome looking pieces of machinery...til something breaks. damn shitty engineering, have to take off 40 parts to reach one part. All the parts are twice the price. Don't believe me, go break a drive axle on a poloris quad or yamaha/suzuki/honda and compare prices and service. Go look at the price of belts for a polaris vs. a skidoo.
this is why you don't see an american made motocrosser. the cost would be 10k-12k for a showroom bike....labor/manufacturing is the killer. We have priced our labor costs right out of the manufacturing market.....we don't have 10% unemployment rate for nothing...
Not much.
If I'm correct, only the chassis and motors in the Harley Davidson line are made in America.
A guy told me he visited the factory, and there was more stuff with "made in Taiwan"
stamped on boxes than anything else.
It's a big deal with those guys. Can't get any more American than that.
The consensus? If it's designed in America, Corporate offices in America, and most importantly, the majority
of profit on the finished product goes to the American company, it's American.
Pit Row
The German's have contrinbuted plenty over the years with the legendary Maico brand and other smaller manufacturers such as Kramer, Hercules, Sachs etc. Recently BMW invested heavily into the enduro bike market with a radical new machine featuring an inverted engine, swingarm pivot thru the countershaft sprocket design.
My original post wasn't to single out America for their lack of a motocross bike and I agree many other countries also don't manufacture, but as the biggest market for off road bikes worldwide, one would have thought a home grown industry/ manufacturer could have had some success. I'd love to see someone like Pro-Circuit push the boundaries of bike design, but the sport & AMA rulebook needs to be opened up again to allow free thinking & design innovation!
I am aware of the older dead brands but they are all gone and not likely (in my opinion) to be coming back. I haven't seen the BMW so I don't think they are selling many over here.
It's clear that Cannondale failed but they did so gloriously. They pushed boundaries of bike design, but in the end they couldn't close the deal for a number of reasons. Probably the same reasons that no one else will be trying anytime soon. Things are so embedded and the capital so high that it's nearly impossible to get in now. The other thing that really hurt Cannondale was dealerships, and those would also hurt anyone that wanted in. You see the same thing in the automobile industry, where someone like Fiat buys a Chrysler so they have a dealer network to push and service their cars here.
I'd guess that we'll have to wait for new technology for this to happen. This putative electric motorcycle industry, for example, might be the future for all of us and will turn things upside down. I really don't want to imagine the 30 second board going sideways and the sound of crickets, but that might be where we're all headed. New players, like Tesla for the road-going electrics, will surface in this new market.
The other possibility is that the Chinese simply copy everything and we become frozen in time yet can afford them.
Sorry for being douchy: I think I still a little raw after the MXoN. I am far from the flag waving, quad riding stereotypical American. There probably isn't a more liberal American on this board. I've made a lot of European friends over the years in my profession (scientist), so I am not a hater. I just felt the need to defend our honor. Peace, brother!
i dont know if this is the reason why we dont have a prominent domestic bike mfg but i gotta bring up a major hurdle that one would encounter
honestly......would any of us trust an american made bike? i dont even trust an american made car. and im supposed to trust a bike that im flying 50 ft on? yeah right.
we may have great engineers and whatnot at the top of the aerospace food chain and with regards to other technical fields......but the cream of the crop arent the ones working on assembly lines. the assembly line worker is the AVERAGE citizen. and i our case, do you really trust the AVERAGE mid-west citizen to be building the bike you put your lifes hands in? we're not talking average east/west coast american....we are talking lower class assembly worker from the mid-west. where most businesses have to put their plants due to tax benefits and whatnot.
i just could never see myself or any affluent person (of which you pretty much have to be to afford 10k bikes these days) being naive enough to trust the common american assembly worker compared to the common japanese assembly worker. theyre not even comparable.
the american way = planned obsolesense. its why our automobiles are so shitty. (and sure, someone here is going to rave about how good their ford or chevy is) save it. youve obviously never owned a nice beamer or other european auto. the differences in quality are massive.
we are a country of outsourcing middle management. we should be able too, but i just cant see us producing a high quality dirtbike in mass units. its a cultural flaw imo.
stop trolling. (edit...i did not see your last post, sorry)
my last auto was a range rover sport. i put almost 100k on it. finest auto ive ever owned.
and britain is indeed home to most the worlds F1 teams. but using them as an example is a stupid as using NASA as an example. the cream of the crop arent a good measuring stick for this discussion.
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