Most people are dreamers, fewer are doers and even more far apart is someone who is repeatedly successful. Erik Buell is on his fourth generation of motorcycles companies, and has left an indelible mark on the industry and the sport.
After cutting his teeth racing Ducati’s and Yamahas in the 1970’s, working as a motorcycle mechanic, getting an engineering degree at university of Pittsburgh, and getting a development job at Harley-Davidson, Erik Buell decided it was time to start his own motorcycle company.
Buell Motor Company got the ball rolling in 1982 with the legendary RW750, running a British-built Barton power plant, designed to compete in the fledging AMA Formula 1 series. Despite the cancellation of AMA F1, BMC went on to build Harley-Davidson powered racing and street motorcycles that went on sale to the public in the 1990’s.
Chapter 2 began when Harley-Davidson bought a majority interest in the re-branded Buell Motorcycle Company, turning Buell into an H-D subsidiary, which gave Buell’s innovative technologies access to a wider audience.
Among these designs were the Zero Torsional Load single front disc brake that is mounted to the rim, (rather than the hub), fuel-carrying frames, and swing arms that doubled as oil tanks, as well as the now-standard practice of placing the muffler under the motor instead of in the vicinity of the rear wheel.
The Harley-Davidson, period Buell’s ran Sportster-based motors, and was used in models ranging from superbike, Supermoto, Streetfighter, and Adventure. At the end of the Buell H-D run, however, Buell collaborated with Rotax in Austria, designing a Rotax-built liquid-cooled, DOHC V-twin engine for two new motorcycles a superbike and a cafe? racer.
When Harley-Davidson and Buell parted ways in 2009, all but the Rotax-powered models were dropped and Erik Buell Racing (EBR) was formed, the third edition of Erik Buell. EBR purchased the rights to the design of the Rotax-associated motor, along with some of the tooling needed to build it, and moved his plant production to East Troy, Wis., along with the rest of EBR manufacturing.
Then, in 2013, EBR took what was to many an unexpected turn, though it was telegraphed when EBR built a concept hybrid scooter for the foreign manufacturing giant, Hero MotoCorp an Indian-based company that had sold 50 million two-wheeled vehicles to date, a 46-percent market share in India, and a market cap of over $5 billion. With $25 million of that money, Hero bought a 49.2-percent stake in EBR.
Hero has an interesting background. Founded as Hero Honda Motors in New Delhi in 1983 as a manufacturing arm of Honda, growth occurred quickly, and Hero Honda was building one million motorcycles and scooters a year by 2001.
From 2000 to 2002, the company manufactured the world’s best-selling motorcycle the Splendor, which was powered by a modest 110cc, single-cylinder, and SOHC motor with a four-speed transmission. Strong growth continued and Hero Honda now selling five million vehicles a year by 2011, resulting in a restructuring of its licensing agreement with Honda.
Honda was dropped from the name and the company becomes Hero MotoCorp. Two years later, Hero’s strategic partnership with EBR began, giving Hero access to the American market with EBR as a distributor. Additionally Hero goes World Superbike Racing in 2014 under the EBR banner, which is where we are now. The Hero-associated EBR is not exactly an all new company, but the teaming with Hero is certainly revolutionary for EBR.
Still a work in progress, Erik Buell told us in an exclusive interview that integrating with Hero has been “very complex lots and lots of planning, discussions, learning, and adaptation.” One of the most interesting aspects of the interactions of the two companies is EBR becoming a Hero distributor in the United States. We asked Buell about the different markets for EBR and Hero, and how the companies would reconcile that.
“Different customers, indeed, but we think the common themes are fun, quality and customer service,” he said. “Very different products, but really not that different in how you react as a distributor.”
The natural question is what sort of cross-pollination will there be between EBR and Hero models. Buell flatly states that there have been no discussions about EBR’s being manufactured in India, or Hero motorcycles being built in Wisconsin, though he was a bit cagier about the possibility of co-branding opportunities.
“Nothing substantive at this time,” Buell says, which indicates at least some preliminary discussions have occurred. When asked about the concept hybrid scooter EBR built for Hero, he revealed, “We are in the process of bringing a production version to market.”
EBR’s have also been racing the AMA Pro Racing Super Bike class in a partnership with Pegram Racing with team title sponsor Foremost Insurance. Larry Pegram, Erik Buell and Cory West have been partners with the Pegram Racing EBR 1190RX in 2014, and both were in the top 10 this year.
“AMA has been important for us since it is our ‘home’ series, and is lower cost,” Buell allows. “It’s also great racing, although the rules are a bit weird. However, the exposure has been weaker than our sponsors would like. World Superbike has far more exposure, and to the global audience, which is what both our sponsors and EBR need. However, it is very expensive for us this is where Hero came to the party.”
The AMA and WSBK teams convened at Laguna Seca this year, with thrilling results. EBR had been chasing its first WSBK championship point when the series arrived in California. With Pegram and May representing the brand on the grid, EBR remained frustrated after Race 1 —Pegram didn’t finish and May took 18th.
With both electric and hybrid EBR’s a possibility in the future, Buell describes the range of models he expects from his company. “We plan to keep expanding to a wider and wider range of sport motorcycles,” he says. “That includes all sorts of street, on-off, off-road, in a range of displacements anything except cruisers, grand tourers, choppers. Those products are well covered by other American manufacturers!”
Switching to racing, Buell gives full credit to Hero’s financial might for EBR’s entry into the FIM World Superbike series. Followers of WSBK have watched Team Hero riders Geoff May and Aaron Yates struggle, as you would expect any new company with new-to-WSBK riders to do in a series that is so competitive, and has deeply entrenched and experienced teams.
Although Hero has deep pockets, the future of EBR at the world’s racetracks is still tied to the realities of economics. “We want to continue in racing, but we will be selective where we run,” Buell explains. “We have two big objectives in racing. One is to stretch and develop our proprietary designs and technology to the benefit of our customers.
“This does not mean that what is best for racing is best for the street, but it is a place to get data on the designs in a narrow set of extreme circumstances. The second is to build recognition of our brand and our sponsors’ brands. So, this means the audience is more important to us than a certain series or a specific championship, we need views.”
Race 2 was a wild and wooly affair, and two red flags played to EBR’s advantage. When the checkered flag finally flew, Pegram’s 14th place finish earned EBR two world championship points, with May just over one second out of the points in 16th. Buell was, of course, thrilled. “Really knowing what it takes to get these points as I do, it was a really cool moment,” he says proudly. “It has been a massive achievement of the EBR team to come from nothing to this level in four years.”
With EBR in World Superbike, we broached the question of a possible MotoGP bid in the future. “I do not know when we would go to MotoGP,” Buell says. “The rules there are very narrow and the costs astronomical. You need to spend a lot of money, and you are very tightly restricted by the rules to a narrow band of product design. It pretty much doesn’t fit our first objective, although the brand exposure for the second objective is good.”
It will be interesting to watch the EBR motorcycles develop before our eyes, as well as the relationship Erik Buell’s company has with Hero MotoCorp. “There was very little interaction on the EBR models so far,” Buell says of its alliance with the Indians, “other than we at EBR were able to learn some things just by observing Hero as we worked on products for them. I think as the two companies work more and more together there will be even more we learn from each other.”
EBR has already expanded into Europe, which Buell sees as the company’s largest export market in the near future, and to fully exploit the Hero association. Buell expects “commitment to a long-term relationship with each other, and commitment to our stakeholders.”
Buell has big plans for his latest motorcycle company. Hero is certainly capable of helping EBR turn expectations and aspirations into reality. The ambition of EBR is impressive, and the machine that the Wisconsin company has come up with to further its goals is one that is singular and dedicated, just like its creator.
“Our association with EBR is very new but we all knew all about him since his early days at Buell and HD, on meeting his team and viewing the new EBR models it was a no brainer not to take the agency for South Africa,” said Craig Langton Sales Director and co-owner of EBR SA and Cayenne World. “We have only been marketing the 1190 RX for the last 3 months with the SX 1190 SuperFighter arriving in the next day or so, sales have been good but are subject to stocks, the response from customers and the media has been excellent, so we expect great things from EBR going forward,” said Langton.
