But unlike company anniversary bashes of years past, this
event shunned aging-superstar rock concerts and vainglorious parades as the
115-year old manufacturer set about the business of attracting its next
generation of customers – attempting to retake their place as the iconic
purveyor of cool amongst today’s fickle millennials.
The Flat-Out Friday Event: Harley is going after the younger crowd
Knowing that fashionable young consumers have an aversion to
overt marketing, Harley-Davidson has artfully thrown their sponsorship behind
Mama Tried, an independent custom motorcycle show and its adjoining Flat-Out
Friday event, an indoor flat-track race held in the company’s hometown this
past February.
“Mama Tried” references a wistful Merle Haggard song, which
gives the show just enough outlaw vibe to attract young, male hipster
motorcyclists… and the girls that love them.
Notably absent were the leather-fringe-and-concho-wearing
crowd from Harley’s heyday in the early 2000’s, when dealerships held long
waiting lists of buyers and Harley-Davidson was a household synonym for cool.
With those folks rapidly aging out of their riding years, the motor company now
has its sights set firmly on the young, the hip and the multicultural.
An Evil Knievel halftime show delights fans including Willie G. Davidson
The four-day event began with a number of gatherings
emanating from the downtown Harley-Davidson Museum campus. Burn barrels warded
off the cold around a hay-baled mini bike racecourse in the museum’s courtyard,
while spectators huddled inside the facility’s Motor restaurant, nursing Pabst
tallboys.
A quarter-mile south at the boutique Iron Horse hotel, young
bike builders sipped barrel-aged bourbon in the moto/industrial decorated
lobby. A quarter-mile further on the same street, the Fuel Café was four-deep
at the bar – filled with smoke from an exuberant tire burnout within the
motorcycle-themed restaurant.
It’s there that I spotted three young guys sneaking one of
the mini bikes from the museum races through the crowded tavern. Within a
minute it was up on the end of the bar; helmeted-rider aboard and engine
revving.
Racers staging for the Hooligan Class
What I anticipated would be a slow victory lap around the
oval bar top became a full-on jump and perfectly-nailed landing, narrowly
splitting the cheering throng of onlookers. Instantly uploaded to social media,
it’s the kind of viral hooliganism that Harley is now happy to outsource.
These are the young people that Harley hopes to attract and
develop into the next generation of motorcycle lifestylers.
The sell-job may not be as daunting as it seems. Motorcycles
have always been the province of youth, and Harley has remained effortlessly
hip from generation to generation. The problem has always been in the product
gap; the company’s emphasis on large, expensive touring bikes has
disproportionately targeted the interstate wanderlust of baby-boomers at the
expense of the excitable youth market.
The company’s new emphasis is being put on its Street,
Sportster and Softail model lineups amidst a consolidation of their production
line following a January announcement to close its Kansas City assembly plant
by the fall of 2019.
They even had some Mini Bike races just for entertainment
Compared with the larger bikes, the Street is a more
urban-friendly motorcycle which now occupies the entry-level position in the
company’s catalog. Still, as Flat-Out Friday demonstrated, the Street in the
right hands can be flung around a short track and pull crowd-pleasing wheelies.
Harley’s flirtations with entry-level, youth-targeted bikes
go back decades. In 1948, Harley offered the Hummer, a single-cylinder 125cc
adaptation of the German DKW from patents obtained through war reparations. In
1960, Harley purchased a controlling interest in Italian company Aermacchi,
which provided the motorcycle maker with single-cylinder bikes from 90cc to
350cc until it was spun-off in 1978.
More recently, wholly-owned subsidiary Buell motorcycles
developed lightweight Harley-powered sports bikes that provided valuable
research and development but were a poor fit for the company’s existing dealer
network and image.
Racing action at Flat-Out Friday
Following the closure of the Buell division in 2009, Harley
flailed to expand market share. Repeating history, it bought Italian motorcycle
manufacturer MV Agusta in 2008, only to invest millions in the company before
selling it back to the previous owner at a loss in 2010.
The company claimed a desire to re-focus on the
Harley-Davidson brand, but as recently as June of 2017 it was reportedly moving
towards a purchase of Ducati before owner Volkswagen withdrew it from sale.
Last week, Harley invested an undisclosed amount in California-based, electric
motorcycle-maker Alta.
Friday’s race took place at Milwaukee’s BMO Harris/Bradley
Center Arena, home to the city’s professional basketball and hockey teams.
Sprayed with Dr. Pepper syrup for adhesion, the concrete floor nonetheless
offered its fair share of spills and innocuous crashes, eliciting cheers from
the crowd.
Harley livestreamed the event on the web, using telegenic
X-Games host Dianna Dahlgren and interviews with social media personalities
like Larry the Enticer and hooligan racer Mark “The Rusty Butcher” Atkins.
A Harley-Davidson 45ci on display at the Mamma Tried event
Eleven race classes competed, but only half of those were
truly competitive. The rest ranged from mini bikes to mopeds, and an outrageous
“inappropriate” class which pitted a wheeled-snowmobile against a dirt bike
rider in a giraffe suit.
It’s fun and unintimidating stuff that makes you think
“Hey, I could to that!”– exactly the impression Harley wants you to take away
about motorcycling.
Reincarnating Harley’s successful flat-track racing history
provides the shot of adrenalin the brand desperately needs to reach younger
riders. The Flat-Out Friday schedule has now grown to a second Milwaukee date,
as well as satellite races in La Crosse, Wisconsin and Cleveland, Ohio.
Taking a cue from another of Harley’s proxy media darlings
–The Race of Gentlemen – Harley will host field games and a beach race this
August at the company’s 115th Anniversary celebration in Milwaukee. It’s an
attempt to shift the focus back more on motorcycle riding, and less on
partying.
The weekend culminated in the invitational Mama Tried
motorcycle show. Held at the 25,000 square-foot Eagles Club ballroom, the
1920’s revivalist architecture provided an elegant, gothic backdrop for the
multi-marque custom and classic motorcycles displayed on its hardwood floor.
Harley-Davidson has embraced custom culture like no other
motorcycle manufacturer, which provides for a vibrant aftermarket and a network
of boutique builders. Vendors filled the anterooms of the facility’s lower
levels, offering clever T-shirts and stickers that touted their brand. For
many, building a Harley is just as important as riding one.
The Mamma Tried event plays heavy on Vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycles among others
Mama Tried is a well-curated event that deftly balances
public access with insider cool – a recipe its main sponsor knows all too well.
The show has outgrown its two-previous warehouse loft locales within four
years, and by the turnout for this event it looks to be on a similar track. By
noon the ballroom exhibition became so crowded that it was nearly impossible to
photograph the bikes.
All of which could be described as a champagne problem for
Harley-Davidson. Now faced with the potential of retaliatory overseas tariffs
which could turn the manufacturer’s plan for European market expansion on its
head, the iconic motorcycle maker needs to grow its next generation of customer
in its very own backyard. It’s first move towards that goal was to reclaim
cool.
STORY: William Hall
SOURCE: Classic Cars Journal
