The last Buell rolled off the East Troy, Wisconsin assembly line this past November 12th, thus closing the final chapter for the American street bike company. After creating 136,923 motorcycles over the last 26 years, it is a Buell Lightning XB12Scg that will be the last motorcycle to bear Erik Buell’s name.
It’s been a few weeks since Harley-Davidson announced the immediate closure of its subsidiary Buell, where dealers began slashing prices both to liquidate stock and to cash-in on Harley’s $5,000 sale incentive. Basic economics dictates that any time a price is raised or lowered it has repercussions to the product’s resale value, and in the case of Buell’s sudden price drop and dumping of basically new bikes into the market, the consequences for current Buell owners seem dreary. Or are they?
In order to find an answer to that question, we asked Joshua Minix, former government think-tank Economist, and current John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, to wade through the implications of Buell’s closure, and how it affects the used Buell motorcycle market. Click past the jump for his analysis.
Buell Motorcycle will be idling its East Troy plant during the months of November and December. During that time, employees will receive 8 days of paid vacation (and be essentially unemployed the rest of the time), but will retain their full medical benefits. The move by Buell isn’t all that uncommon for manufacturers who are experiencing a slow down in production, but surely sucks that “Happy Holidays” cheer out of the non-unionized shop.
Los Angeles County riders may be sad to hear that the famed Angeles Crest Highway will be closed for an unforeseeable duration because of recent fire damage to the roadway.
Because of the Station Fire, more than 40 miles of twisty asphalt heaven have been closed indefinitely because of burned off road stripping, destroyed guard rails, and charred signs, making the road too hazardous to drivers according to Caltrans officials.