Welcome Back, Honda

Welcome back, Honda

UP FRONT

David Edwards

EVEN FROM A BLOCK AWAY, I COULD see that something was wrong. Where there should have been rows of shiny new motorcycles illuminated by fluorescent lights, all I saw was darkened windows. Arlington Honda looked shut down.

Cupping my hands, I peered inside, my eyes adjusting to the murkiness. There were a few scooters, a couple of used bikes, but nothing else, just empty linoleum where 20 or 30 motorcycles were supposed to be. Then, I saw a man sitting at a desk in the corner, eating lunch. I rapped on the glass with my car keys, trying to get his attention. He slowly stood up, mouthed something indecipherable and approached the door.

“We’re not open for business.” That much I sensed. I introduced myself, explaining that I was on my way to Honda’s 1990-model introduction in Dallas, and thought I’d stop in to get a Texas dealer’s view of the marketplace.

“I’m getting out,” he said. “Gonna open a parts store; sell used bikes.”

I wondered what the problem was. “Honda didn’t have anything to sell this year, and what they did have, I had to sell for what it cost me.”

I asked a few more questions, scribbled some notes, then said goodbye, wishing the ex-dealer well. I headed towards Big D, disturbed.

I wouldn’t have been so bothered if Arlington was a small oil town gone bust on the wind-blown plains of West Texas. Then, I could have chalked up the dealership’s closure to poor location. But Arlington is situated in the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth “Metroplex.” It’s a city of 250,000 inhabitants, the home of the Texas Rangers baseball team, with a major university, a GM assembly plant and several nearby aerospace industries. A town like that without a Honda shop just didn’t seem right.

Some industry people I talked with later estimated that Honda has lost as much as 30 percent of its dealer network over the past two years. Honda says the number is actually 15 percent, and that a fair portion of that loss is directly related to the downturn in the ATV market. You can read about the 1990 Honda motorcycles starting on page 26 of this issue, and there’s some impressive machinery, but as I poured over the photographs, specifications and price sheets, I wondered if it was impressive enough to halt Honda’s recent misfortunes, impressive enough to prevent more Arlington Hondas from going out of business.

To help answer those questions, I called two prominent Honda dealers. The first was Floyd Dreyer Jr., owner of this country’s oldest continually run Honda dealership. Dreyers father, Floyd Sr., a retired factory Indian racer, started a cycle shop in 1950 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and became the ninth person who signed up in 1959 to sell the funny little motorcycles built by Soichiro Honda. Today, Dreyer and his son Mike sell Suzukis and Yamahas, as well.

Dreyer agreed that Honda hadn’t given its U.S. dealers much to sell in 1989. He watched as FZRs, Katanas and GSX-Rs were snapped up by buyers, while he could offer only one Honda sportbike, a CBR600.

“I don’t feel like we’ve had a whole lot to offer. I think that Honda was working on some wrong information with some of the bikes they gave us in 1989,” he said, going on to mention the Pacific Coast, the GB500 and the Transalp. “If you ride them, they’re fantastic bikes,” he continued, “but no dealers are selling them, because of their price and because they are so different.”

Dreyer sees the new models as a step in the right direction, though, saying, “It looks like Honda’s back on their feet. There’s more pizzazz for 1990. There’s something to talk about. Honda’s definitely back in the ball game.”

Dreyer also had praise for some of the dealer programs that Honda has instituted, including rebates and more money for local advertising, and he was glad to see Honda had held the line on prices. “I’m enthusiastic. I really feel that Honda has made some good moves. We made money this year and we’ll do okay next year. We’ve been here since 1950; we’re here to stay,” he said.

Lee Fleming is also a multi-line dealer, selling Hondas, Kawasakis and Yamahas from his Champion Motorcycles shop in Costa Mesa, California. Champion is one of the most-successful dealerships on the West Coast. Fleming, too, thinks that a lot of Honda’s recent sales malaise comes from ill-advised motorcycles.

“Honda abandoned the sportbike too soon,” he said, before citing the Pacific Coast as an example of Honda’s questionable market judgment. “They wanted to sell investment bankers bikes to put in their Manhattan loft apartments. Believe me, those aren’t the average motorcycle buyers.”

Fleming saw the handwriting on the wall, though, and stocked as many non-current VFR750s and Hurricane 1000s, as well as dual-purpose XL600s, as he could. “We had a good year with Honda,” he said. “Honda had some good products (in recent years); they just stopped building them.”

But, like Dreyer, Fleming is upbeat about Honda’s chances in 1990. “The attitude at Honda has changed. The dealer programs, for example, seem to have been drawn up by someone who really wanted to sell motorcycles. The mood of the dealers is very good. I’m very optimistic: Honda is getting back into the motorcycle business.”

If my experience in Arlington, Texas, is any indication, not a second too soon.