1987 New Model Preview
1987 NEW MODEL PREVIEW
NINETEEN EIGHTY-SEVEN IS SHAPING UP TO BE A banner year for motorcycles, with more new models being released than at any time since the Honda-Yamaha wars of the early 1980s. Yamaha is charging into 1987 with a megapowered, liter-class FZ, along with a limited-production 750-class streetbike/roadracer, plus revised cruisers and the world's most unusual dual-purpose bike. Suzuki and Kawasaki are contending for the monster V-Twin title by introducing Harley-esque cruisers with more displacement than the average economy car possesses. Kawasaki has a new sporting Twin in a mid-size package, as well. And while Honda hasn't announced models for the U.S. market as yet, its European models are out, and hot: inline-Four sportbikes, both big and small, and both with record horsepower claims.
But this boom year also has its dark sides. Last year saw a significant drop in motorcycle sales, despite showroom floors that carried some of the best bikes ever. High insurance and financing rates had a lot to do with reduced sales, and these factors will now be joined by the higher retail prices created by the dramatic devaluation of the American dollar—particularly in comparison to the Japanese yen. For a few new models, 1987 may bring 25-percent price increases, and most all-new motorcycles will be unusually expensive.
Motorcycle companies are very aware of the financial realities of the market, and several things are sure: The manufacturers realize that new models will have to be very good indeed to justify their prices, and that the rate of change in motorcycles must slow. Models will have to live longer lives than the two or three years that is now typical, and new technology will undoubtedly take longer to reach the marketplace.
Not that these changes are necessarily bad; don’t forget, this mindset is what produced the 1986 Yamaha Radian and FZ600, two excellent motorcycles. The price increases and likely slow-down in development also offer a window of opportunity for Cagiva-Ducati-Husqvarna and Harley-Davidson; both companies will be more pricecompetitive, and stand a real chance of gaining market share in 1987.
So the likes of this multitude of new models may not be seen again, and 1987 may be the last hurrah for the newness-conquers-all theory of marketing. But whatever the grim visions of corporate accountants, the new motorcycles shown on the following pages know nothing of them. They live instead in the imaginations of all motorcyclists, cruising the open road, slaloming down a tight, wooded trail, straightening a twisty backroad. And as motorcyclists, we can’t help but be excited about them.
