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Things don’t look great for Bimota, one of the most iconic motorcycle brands ever created. The happy merger of the talents of Valerio Bianchi (BI), Giuseppe Morri (MO), and Massimo Tamburini (TA), Bimota has a storied past of failure, and a history of rebirth.

Several weeks ago, we covered a report from Cycle World’s Bruno dePrato, which outlined the currently dire state of the company. It seemed that once again that Bimota was falling on hard times, and the future of the brand remained uncertain.

Bimota took issue with this news, naturally.

The Bimota brand has a storied past, from its creation by Valerio Bianchi, Giuseppe Morri, and Massimo Tamburini, to its modern rebirth (several times over).

In between those chapters, we have seen a story born out of the company’s Rimini headquarters that has created some of motorcycling’s most iconic models, but it seems that the Bimota story is set to end.

In a story published by Cycle World, Bruno dePrato reports that Bimota has closed its doors in Italy, and all but officially ceased its business operations.

Skully on Friday finally acknowledged what has already been known in the motorcycling community: the company was going out of business. The news comes after a last-minute effort by the remaining management to secure a new round of funding.

With $15 million down the drain, work still to do before the Skully AR-1 would be ready to ship, and a growing group of disgruntled early adopters, Skully’s resurrection was not to be.

Instead in a letter to backers and customers, Skully announced that it would be filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy procedure for companies that are going out of business. This news, of course, directly impacts the thousands of motorcyclists who were expecting to receive a Skully AR-1 helmet.

It was just two weeks ago that we told you about Skully’s investors ousting brothers Marcus Weller and Mitch Weller from the San Francisco startup, and today TechCrunch reports that the motorcycle helmet company will be rather swiftly closing its doors.

A&R readers may remember that Skully’s latest delay to market stemmed from the Skully AR-1 helmet not being ready for mass production, despite the nearly $15 million raised through seed money and a Series A funding round, which was led by Intel Capital.

As such, the closure surely stems from Skully’s investors choosing to shut down the company’s operations, rather than rebuild Skully’s tarnished reputation and retool its product for mass production.

According to TechCrunch, operations at Skully have already ceased, and the website is expected to go offline later today, though as of this writing Skully’s website remains, and its social marketing team is still on Facebook cooling the heels of angry customers.

This one hits us out of the blue, but according to Cyril Huze, Jesse James has shutdown for good his custom chopper business: West Coast Choppers. If true, it’s not clear what will become of James’ Long Beach based company, but it looks like West Coast Choppers’ frames and parts will be produced by Daytec and Belt Drive LTD respectively, and sold through Custom Chrome. More info as we get it, but considering this news is hitting us during the weekend, we don’t expect to hear much before Monday.

Source: Cyril Huze Blog via Basem Wasef; Photos: West Coast Choppers

UPDATE: Moto Morini has responded to other reports that the Italian company has shut its doors, and instead says its production line is at a greatly diminished capacity.

After going into receivership a few months ago, Moto Morini has found its financial stability withering away as time marches-on. With no end in sight for the company’s blight, Moto Morini has shutdown its production line, and will remain in that state until a new buyer or group of investors emerge and breath life back into the small Italian brand.

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Yamaha Motors is announcing that it will be closing down 11 facilities, thus halting production, for two-weeks in order to cut on costs. The shutdown is expected to occur sometime in February or March, and will include lines for Yamaha’s motorcycles, recreational vehicles, atvs, watercraft, and spare parts.

In similar news, Honda has announced that it will be cutting production worldwide and across the board: cars, bikes, generators, you name it.

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