C-168 Part 4: Case Studiesand the image of the American flag provided the back-
ground on the truck’s sides. The Victory fleet of semi-
trailer trucks was honored by Fleet Owner magazine as
winner of a 1998 Fleet Owner Vehicle Graphic Award.^27Industry Competition^10
At the beginning of the 20th century there were three
big American manufacturers producing large displace-
ment bikes: Harley-Davidson, Indian and Excelsior-
Henderson. Harley-Davidson, Indian, and Excelsior
accounted for ninety percent of the US market in 1930.
The Great Depression devastated the industry, wiping
out most of the smaller manufacturers. Starting in 1975
and continuing through the mid-1980s, Japanese com-
panies penetrated the big-bore custom motorcycle mar-
ket with Harley look-alikes sporting V-twin engines.
Harley struggled against Japanese competition in the
1970s, but came back stronger than ever in the eighties.
As the twentieth century ended, 1998 marked the first
time since 1955 that Americans have had the choice of
a large American designed and manufactured motorcy-
cle other than Harley-Davidson.^31 The introduction of
the Victory marked the first time in sixty years that a
new American motorcycle manufacturer introduced a
“significant motorcycle” that will be widely distributed.
The Victory motorcycle was aimed at grabbing mar-
ket share from both the Japanese manufacturers (Honda,
Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki) and Harley-Davidson.
Victory’s initial assessment of the attractiveness of
entry into the motorcycle industry was based on their
assessment of Harley’s profit margins. When Victory
was launched Harley-Davidson had a nearly fifty-four
percent share of the U.S. market for heavyweight bikes
and held an estimated thirty percent share of the $3 bil-
lion worldwide heavyweight market. Victory’s goal was
to take five percent of that market, or in other words,
sales of approximately $150 million.^32 The heavyweight
cruiser market had been growing and Harley-Davidson
had been unable to satisfy the demand in the United
States. By default, the Japanese producers were able to
capture increasingly larger shares of the market. Some
analysts felt that Victory bikes would take share from the
Japanese but not from Harley-Davidson.
Japanese Manufacturers – Honda, Yamaha,
Kawasaki and Suzuki^10
Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki entered the US
market in the seventies at the expense of both Harley-
Davidson and the British motorcycle makers, and
were now the predominant world industry players.These longtime Japanese motorcycle powerhouses were
strong competitors because they enjoyed large overall
sales volume and diversified product lines.^33 Polaris had
successfully taken on Japanese competitors in the past
when it entered the Japanese-dominated market for
all-terrain vehicles in 1985 and started selling personal
watercraft in 1992. Polaris was now one of the biggest
makers of each of those markers and was leading in terms
of U.S. market share in snowmobiles. Polaris regarded
the Japanese as their significant competitors. At the time
of the Victory launch only two manufacturers, Polaris
and Yamaha, competed in all four power-sports vehicle
markets -snowmobiles, personal watercraft, all-terrain
vehicles and motorcycles. Polaris expected their success
to continue with motorcycles. The Victory team also felt
that US customers could be lured from Yamaha, Suzuki,
Kawasaki, and Honda by exploiting the notion that the
Japanese-brand bikes were not American-made.
However, by 2009 the Japanese bikes were as pop-
ular as ever, and the Japanese companies were showing
no sign of retreating from the market. Honda was the
world’s largest producer of motorcycles and announced
its 300-millionth bike in 2014. The Honda motorcycle
line included everything from small scooters to the huge
1832cc Valkyrie Rune – one of the largest engines in
the market. In 2014 Honda offered an extensive line of
cruisers, custom street bikes, racing, and touring bikes.
Their Shadow and VTX models were, in effect, Harley
look-alikes. The Honda Gold Wing was still consid-
ered one of the best touring bikes as well. Honda and
the other Japanese manufacturers seemed to be in the
heavyweight segment to stay.Harley-Davidson10,33
The Harley-Davidson Motor Company was founded
in 1903 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During World War I,
Harley-Davidson supplied the military with motorcy-
cles and became the largest motorcycle company in the
world in 1918. In 1969, AMF (American Machine and
Foundry), Inc. purchased Harley and poured money
into the company. Some think the strategy used by AMF
hurt Harley’s quality while others thought AMF actually
saved Harley from the Japanese because of its deep pock-
ets. In 1982, a group of Harley managers, led by Vaughn
Beals and Jeffrey Bluestein, purchased Harley from AMF
and turned around the company in the 1980s. By 1988
Harley was Fortune Magazine’s most admired transpor-
tation firm and Harley had entrenched itself as a world
leader in the heavyweight segment.
Harley-Davidson products included cruisers, factory
custom, and touring motorcycles, as well as police and