I'd love to know the real back story about how he came across a warehouse full of unsold 430 Autos. Ask him about Husky to Cagiva handover back in the 80's and whatever happened to the unsold Swedish bikes & parts. I doubt they would have shipped all that stuff down from Sweden to Italy - maybe they did? From memory, they dropped production of all the Swedish models apart from the 510 four strokes and just repainted and re-branded the existing Cagiva dirt bikes with Husky logos. I wonder what happened to all of the old Swedish Husky machines & tooling? The BMW to KTM handover looks like history repeating itself.
Not following you there Norm, The was a KTM motor. Had KTM all over the castings. KTM head and internal parts. Just the configuration was unique to Berg. BTW I loved the FE390. husky / KTM - please keep putting band aids on that tooling and making this old lump please.
All the "motorcycle specific tooling"was sent to Cagiva. As where all motorcycle drawings. Transition captain for Husqvarna Sweden Bent Olof Gustavsson and plant manager Rolf Ericksson had to guess want to send and what to scrap.the spare parts inventory was sent to Cagiva. The obsolete and slow-moving parts where auction off by the pallet load in Sweden. The really funny thing was that the Cagiva Transition captain spent all of 20 days in a two year period to get what Cagiva wanted in Swedan. I heard also at the auction there where containers full of Lulue hubs and stuff like that Cagiva also put some 430s together in Itay but that was from Parts and sub-assemblies from Sweden. I know that in the Ohio warehouse the 430 Autos to dealers where going as low as $500. Cagiva didn't want them. It kinda sound like what is going on right now...
This tread reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Unburdened by any knowledge of the facts I can speculate at will." With that in mind I do enjoy reading it.
Mxa's take on the recent SP interview. Sounds mostly positive to me. http://motocrossactionmag.com/mobil...S-WEEKEND-NEWS-REPORT-ARE-YOU-COMM-10002.aspx
"Production of the motocross and enduro models will stay in Italy, but R&D will move to KTM. " i thought they already laid off everyone and are not building bikes in Italy? "but it is assumed that at some point KTM would consider moving all Husqvarna production to a cheaper and less union driven country" Yeah, i think that just happened. "In the future Husqvarna will focus on its motocross and offroad roots." "The answer could be India. There will be a Husqvarna branch in India. Bajaj, which partners with KTM on the 125 Duke, 200 Duke and upcoming 390 Duke, will introduce a Husqvarna line of dual-purpose bikes for the Indian market." OK which is it high end MX bikes of India built commuters? "Husqvarna will make a big-bore single-cylinder four-stroke, in the 650cc to 690cc range, for the popular supermoto market in Europe." We call it the KTM 690 here. "Existing Husqvarna dealers will be given the opportunity, where possible, to take on the Husaberg line. This will give Husky dealers product to sell while the Husqvarna product line undergoes development. It will also give the dealers more experience with the KTM way of doing business. " ouch. I know lots of KTM dealers not carrying KTMs any more because of them forcing way more bike son them then they want. Reading between these lines it seems like an uphill struggle. We will see.
So we have a labor dispute in a country infamous for same and reports from parties to the dispute. At the very least we can expect some drama and exaggeration. Rumors of 11k bikes stacked somewhere (which includes dealers, imaginary dealers, dealers to be and Ray-Rays place). I can pick up a new 3 year old KTM or Husaberg at dealers near me....are those part of the 11k? US BMW/Husqvarna with nearly empty warehouses. SP making statements that are contradictory or at least translate as such. Might just be pointy-haired boss corporatese which is hard enough to follow without the translations. On the the other hand I installed a Zip Ty breather on my 511, changed oil and filters, changed the shock spring and put in an Iridium plug which I got from a KTM dealer .....and then it started right up. I plan to take it to China Hat this weekend for a ride and I bet it could care less what SP has to say in the meantime or if they find all those bikes behind Ray-Rays place in the Phillipines.
If a bike crate is 2' x 8' (extremely rough numbers)... 2x8x11,000 = 176,000 square feet. Square root of 176,000 is 420. Ironic number considering that was a couple of days ago... but for the moment let me assume that is just coincidence. Assuming there is no stacking bikes on shelves, that would be about 6 football fields - assuming there is no wasted space for things like room to get forklifts in so bikes can be accessed/shipped.
no the crates are like 4' tall. wheels off, bars off. I think i have a pic somewhere but it is an old one, need to dig up. Might have only been 4 high but think it was more.
