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Perhaps they need to add some metal flake into their paint like this

csspostal wrote:Perhaps they need to add some metal flake into their paint like this

Dude, that was a $1,500 paint job back in '84 - it took six coats of clear to smooth out, there was so much metal flake in it. I'd hate to see how much it would cost today.

Gummiente wrote:

csspostal wrote:Perhaps they need to add some metal flake into their paint like this

Dude, that was a $1,500 paint job back in '84 - it took six coats of clear to smooth out, there was so much metal flake in it. I'd hate to see how much it would cost today.

My Dad used to have helmets with that much sparkle when I was a kid. Like you said it was the 80's I mean Boy George and Wham, Duran, Duran were at the top of the charts for crying out loud

Gummiente wrote:

csspostal wrote:Perhaps they need to add some metal flake into their paint like this

Dude, that was a $1,500 paint job back in '84 - it took six coats of clear to smooth out, there was so much metal flake in it. I'd hate to see how much it would cost today.

But you do mean $1,500 Canadian, right? What was that--like $27.50 American at the time?

RockBottom wrote:But you do mean $1,500 Canadian, right? What was that--like $27.50 American at the time?

IIRC, the Deutschemark at the time was at $0.50CDN and $0.30US. There was a period of about 4 months back in '85 where the CDN dollar was worth 3DM and the US dollar was at 3,90DM. You wouldn't believe how much booze my paycheque could get then.

RhadamYgg wrote:
You are completely correct. It would have to be a wholly owned subsidiary of HD - perhaps even a hidden subsidiary like GM did with Saturn for the first couple of years.

RhadamYgg

But how did that turn out in the end?

High_Side wrote:

RhadamYgg wrote:
You are completely correct. It would have to be a wholly owned subsidiary of HD - perhaps even a hidden subsidiary like GM did with Saturn for the first couple of years.

RhadamYgg

But how did that turn out in the end?

Doh!

I would claim that there were problems in mmaintaining the companies vision and not with the basic premise - which was make small cars as good as or better than the japanese models.

Gummiente wrote:

csspostal wrote:Perhaps they need to add some metal flake into their paint like this

Dude, that was a $1,500 paint job back in '84 - it took six coats of clear to smooth out, there was so much metal flake in it. I'd hate to see how much it would cost today.

Looks like there is some Flake in these bikes from Bike Week Gummie maybe its making a come back.

here is what I remember about the 70's

Well, maybe something new from HD isn't the answer. It would be neat if maybe they had one model a year made as a special project by their engineers - that showed off something truly different.
Sell that model just for that one year. See what kind of response it gets, but already on the next year is the next different bike.

Some things will hit and some things will miss. It will create a collectors market for bikes that are only out for one year.

I was surprised to see in a HD history book (bored at Barnes and Noble) that there were HD scooters among other very different things from HD in the past.

As a pet project it would be neat to see a HD scooter in 2011 or 2012 - and it be a great effort that Vespa says "Oh, "poo poo"" and motorcycle riders look at it and say "You know, I might not buy one, but that's pretty cool." Make 500 of them and that's it, its done.

But this works for any of the motorcycle manufacturers. You could say my bike is one of those bikes. They tested the waters and me and 5 other people liked it enough to buy it. So, they won't be visiting that again - at least probably not for a while.

RhadamYgg