Up Front

UP FRONT

Red tide

David Edwards

HONDA IS MAD AS HELL AND THEY'RE not going to take it anymore. At least that was the none-too-discreet message coming from the company’s recent dealer convention.

Item: Author of the light-is-right dictum for Open-class sportbikes, Honda positively chafed as Yamaha’s lighter, righter YZF-R1 one-upped the CBR900RR and ran off with all the magazine accolades. The followup R6, everybody’s all-time favorite 600, was just so much more salt in the repli-racer wound.

Item: With the thickest Thumper dossier in the business, Honda was sent reeling by Yamaha’s sizzling YZ400F off-road four-stroke, winner of everything from a national motocross championship to your local Vet scrambles. On the two-stroke front, Honda somehow managed to estrange itself from longtime Red Rider Jeremy McGrath, only the best supercrosser this world has ever seen, who eventually ended up on-what else?-a Yamaha YZ250 with two SX titles in his gearbag. Upshot of all this? January through June, 1999, Yamaha actually sold more dirtbikes in the U.S. than Honda, the first time that’s happened in recent memory.

Item: Of the Japanese Big Four and the (now) American Three, Honda is the only company without a 1500-class VTwin mega-cruiser. While Yamaha was busy rounding out its cruiser line with a variety of 650, 1100, 1300 and 1600cc Vees, Honda was hanging new fenders on its 13-year-old Shadow 1100. With predictable showroom consequences. In fact, in an industry that is up virtually across the board, Honda’s overall bike sales increased a modest 15 percent. Yamaha’s numbers, meanwhile, have skyrocketed by a whopping 46 percent.

Item: Honda has seen its lead in the lucrative ATV market whittled down by Yamaha and Polaris, each of which is now just a few percentage points behind, largely on the strength of their utilitarian, automatic-transmission models. Honda won’t have an auto-shift ATV (the impressive-looking Rubicon 500) ’til sometime next year.

Bottom line? Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but as one multi-line dealer told me, “Honda gave every indication of being asleep at the switch, and while they were, Yamaha raised up and took a big oF chunk out of Honda’s

gluteus maximus.”

Some 2400 people (two from each dealership) assembled in New Orleans to hear a series of surprisingly blunt statements-obviously scripted and approved from on high-on just how Honda intended to cover its ass.

Opening volley went to John Petas, a senior vice president. “We are innovators, the creators of categories and of the machines that dominate them,” he said. “Tonight we’ll unveil exciting new products that will immediately begin to re-establish our winning credentials. These products will start us on a three-year path to market domination of the category segments in which we compete.”

Next up was Motohide Sudo, assistant to the president, who named names. “Recently, we have seen Yamaha and Polaris close the gap in categories we once dominated. Meanwhile, HarleyDavidson continues to prosper. We are well aware of this situation. You will see from tonight forward how Honda products will answer their challenges,” he said. “Honda earned its leadership position-it was not given to us. We will not allow it to be taken away...I want to make it clear that Honda will do whatever is necessary to strengthen our leadership position...Never forget that we are the leaders. We deal from a position of power. And if anyone has forgotten, we will remind them of the consequences of challenging Honda.”

Spicy stuff this, a decided cut above the usual rah-rah pablum doled out to

dealers. Then Ray Blank, VP of sales and operations-and one of American Honda’s heaviest hitters-got downright animated in talking about the competition. “It’s clear they are trying to take what’s ours,” he stated. “We know Yamaha and Polaris are gaining ground in a couple of segments. So it’s time to put them in their place again...Tonight, you’ll see the first of three phases of product that will send Yamaha-and all other second-place contenders-back to R&D land scratching their heads, wondering how we did it.”

I spoke with Blank a week after the dealer convention and asked about all the brash rhetoric, out of character for usually conservative Honda.

“We are on a mission,” he explained. “There were some who doubted Honda’s position within the motorcycle industry. There were some who thought that Honda was more concerned with its auto business, that we would allow someone to take over our place in the (motorcycle) market and in history. We wanted to answer any questions there might have been.”

Okay, but I wonder why there’s still no big-bore V-Twin cruiser. In an evening of rousing applause for the year-2000 models, Honda’s fourth reskinning of the Shadow 1100 met with only tepid response from dealers. I wonder where the new Gold Wing is, the long-rumored eight-cylinder, maybe with automatic transmission, that will answer BMW’s stunningly good K1200LT luxo-tourer. I wonder if a kick-only XR650 pushing 300 pounds will do much to restore Honda’s four-stroke credentials in an off-road world increasingly populated by lightweight Thumpers, many with push-button starting. I wonder why Europe gets the 140-horsepower XI1 super-standard and we don’t.

“Did we bring everything that could be expected? No. Is there stuff missing? Yes. But, remember, this is just the beginning,” Blank responded. “Over the next 36 months, Honda is going to revolutionize-that may be too strong a word, let’s say ‘evolutionize’-the industry.”

So, what does a revitalized Honda mean to you and me on the checkwriting end of the new-bike equation? Well, remember that old bromide about an incoming tide raising all boats?

Works for a Red tide, too.