Up Front
UP FRONT
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY'RE DIFFERENT
Allan Girdler
Humming down the highway on the GS550 I glance at the mirrors and note that just behind me are a VW, a Datsun and a Dodge. A plain Dodge, green. Not the Dodge that's black and white and red on top when it's time for them to take some of your money.
Checking the mirrors is normal. But had I been on a score of models which come to mind, the mirrors would have revealed two small blurs and one large blur. There are bikes with mirrors so shaky that one can barely distinguish a Porsche from a Peterbilt. Suzuki fits nice little rubber bushings between the bracket and mirror stalk. The others don’t.
Comes time to signal for a lane change and I push the switch. On the Suzuki the blinker will blink until I turn it off. That may be a few seconds later and it may be when I look down and notice the little light and think Damn! I forgot to turn off the blinkers! On a Yamaha, a computer turns off the blinkers for the rider. On a Honda a nasty buzzer prevents forgetfulness. On a Harley the blinker switches are buttons and you can’t leave them on.
The GS550 is powered by a transverse Four driving a chain and cooled by air. Had this been another day or week I could have been using a One, Two or Three, transverse, V or inline, chain or shaft, fins or radiator, with six speeds or five or four or two, clutch or torque converter.
If the variations aren’t quite infinite, they are numerically beyond calculation. Multiply the choice of engine by transmission by drive train configuration and you have choices in the tens of thousands.
I mention this because we’re about to leap into another version of the new model year, which brings lots of new models. In recent years it’s also brought versions of an old nag, along the lines of how motorcycles are becoming homogenized appliances. Preachers who inveigh about this have gone so far as to coin a catchy phrase, namely the Universal Japanese Motorcycle.
The gloomy picture painted by those who view the UJM with alarm begins with a rosy past. At one time, they say, motorcycles were different. Distinctive. Products of brilliant individuals who marched to their own drums. Now (sob) all the motorcycle companies are marching in lock step while borrowing each other’s ideas.
I think the UJM is a crock.
One advantage to having begun riding at an early age, on a motorcycle several years older than I, is that I was there for those good old days.
Only those of us who forgot to retard the spark and were in consequence catapulted over the bars can truly appreciate electric starting. Bring back the good old days? I’d rather eat worms.
But that isn’t the question. Diversity has always been a matter of viewpoint. Friend of mine who restores old bikes showed me a book the other day. Packed full of fourcylinder motorcycles, it was. Famous names and far more of them than I expected. Without dipping into the musty files I can come up with Fours from Indian, Henderson, Excelsior and Ariel. And how was their daring repaid? They died.
Skip the odd examples. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago you could get a V-Twin from Harley, Indian or Vincent. Boxer Twins came from BMW and Zundapp. All the English makers had big Singles and vertical Twins. On paper the buyers had a choice. In fact, you could buy whatever was built in your country of residence and the average product of that country, wherever it was, was pretty much like its rivals made in that country.
Now consider copying. If no manufacturer would have anything to do with improvements coming from other makers, there’d be one car manufacturer in the world. General Motors. That’s where the bright men were who invented the practical electric starter and it was the electric starter which transformed a rich man’s toy into everybody’s means of personal transportation.
Who'adapted the electric starter to the motorcycle, I don’t know. Nor do I care. When one firm did it the others had to follow or settle for the sporting two percent of the market or take up some other line of work. You can apply the same thing to shaft drive or telescopic forks or overhead valves. If a new idea is a good one, people will want it and buy it and sellers without the new idea won't sell as much.
Running through this UJM complaint appears a thread of mistaken resentment. The idea seems to be that the various makers and their captive engineers are eager to make off with each other’s keen new gadgets.
Not so. Few of the newer new ideas are especially complicated. Or even expensive. Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki could fit computers for the turn signals. Or Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki could fit beepers. Honda could build V Twins. Harley could design and produce inline Fours or opposed Fours or any configurai tion ever devised. In fact I’d warrant the men at Harley have been drawing up replacements for their big old engine ever since they drew up the big old engine itself. That’s the way R&D works.
Well? Why haven’t the several rival makers stolen the scores of new things? There are few patents to worry about and as we’ve seen in the past, if enough people pick up a new idea, the new idea becomes an industry standard and we all forget who had it first.
They don’t do it because they hate the thought of using the other man’s work. Hate it. Also it’s work for which nobody in the home office gets credit. Bendable turn signal stalks on Can-Am and Yamaha bikes are a selling point only for those factories. The others only get to keep up, finish a close second, as it were.
I think the actual basis for this carping about how all motorcycles are becoming alike is actually a complaint that no motorcycle company is holding still. Time was, Harleys were for old guys on the highway, British was spelled Sport, real dirt bikes came only from Europe and a Honda was a dinky toy for high school girls. Later, vertical Twins came only from England and only Italians handled and Suzuki only made two-strokes and Honda invented the overhead camshaft. Then came two-stroke Hondas and four-stroke Suzukis and Japanese bikes that would win motocross out of the crate. Now the latest Triumphs don’t leak oil and the Italian electrical systems don’t do a spark show every night and each member of the Big Four has its own Big Four and people say Oh, they’re all alike.
Like Hell they are. American car makers didn’t fit adjustable seat backs until lots of people bought them inside imported cars. The overseas car makers didn't fit side mirrors you could adjust from inside until U.S. customers insisted.
What we are seeing is every motorcycle company broadening its own product line as much as it can and if the breadth lands on a rival’s home ground, tough. They don’t want to copy.
They want your business.
