They are really tiptoeing around the watercooling in product literature on the electra-glide. They were also pretty low-key about the EFI changeover IIRC. Given the reception the v-rod got I'm not surprised (I've heard it called "v-wad" on several occasions). There is a certain portion of H-D's rider demographic that despises ANY innovation on their bikes, and Harley has to be careful how they market their bikes to this segment or risk losing sales.Gummiente wrote:They certainly have seemed to downplay the water cooling for some reason. They've been advertising 8 bikes under the "Project Mount Rushmore" banner, which focuses on how they were built with "unprecedented" customer input, so you would think a significant change like water cooling (okay, partial water cooling) would be front and centre in all the hype.Grey Thumper wrote:Isn't it just the two Electra Glide models that get the water-cooled (well, partially water-cooled) engine. Interestingly, water-cooling isn't even mentioned in the press notes http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/motorcyc ... aGlide.htm
I'm really curious to see how well it works and what, if any, long term maintenance or reliability issues will arise. If they can pass the next hike in emissions standards with this setup, it will be an impressive feat, but I'm still hoping for a bored out V-Rod motor in a Road Glide chassis to appear some day.
On the flip side, looks like competition is doing Harley some good. Looks like Harley is taking their competition seriously now instead of trying to rely on their name to sell bikes (so now in addition to the generally better attention to detail in the styling that H-D pulls off in the cruiser class they have some of the best engines/transmissions in the segment too).
