Motus closing it's doors immediately

[Pat Conlon]

[ryanschoebel]

Pat, I gotta give you props, that just made me ugly laugh 

[johnod]

Sorry to see them go.
I liked the looks and the sound, and everything I read.
Never was going to buy one at those prices sadly.

I like the Buell-Motus idea someone mentioned, but I have an early Buell so I would.

[Bill_Rockoff]

I have done a decent bit of riding lately on the FJ and the 998, with Andrew riding one bike while I ride the other. The FJ gets all the love from old guys on ADV bikes telling me "I first saw one at the Motorcycle Show in 1984, finally got myself an '87, never should have sold it!" or something.  But I took the 998 to work in the city Wednesday and it got a lot of thumbs-up, remarks, conversation, from a whole bunch of people who weren't in the middle of a 4-Corners Ride or a Saddlesore.

And it was easily the slowest, least-reliable, most-overheaty bike I saw the whole way home, and there were a LOT of bikes out in Atlanta Wednesday.

My marketing / business classes are kinda outdated, they all took place 20 years ago when Harley-Davidson was cited as an example of a company doing things well and being profitable as a result. But I am pretty convinced Motus could have sold a lot more $38,000 motorcycles if they were gorgeous-looking to normal people, passers-by who didn't know "the engine is based on half a Corvette engine, and it was built by Katech, the folks who make Corvette engines into Le Mans winners." If Motus had gotten, say, the guy from Connecticut who did the Tesla designs to take a crack at drawing a more-shapely Motus? That guy drew a $90,000 sedan and a $120,000 SUV that are lust objects to people who can drop $90,000 to $120,000 on a car, I bet he could have drawn a $38,000 sporty/toury motorcycle that was an object of desire to everyone who saw it.

The guy in my parking lot asked me about the 998, "is it as fun as it looks?" Now, I don't Harley at all, but for those of you who do, is that what people think about when they think about Harleys? Does it look "fun" to people? I was able to tell the guy, "It's every bit as fun as it looks - in the exact way you think it's going to be when you see it. It delivers on every promise it makes with its looks."

I want to live in a world where Motus sells every bike they can build because they all *look* like they're going to be as fun as we all know sport touring rides can be. They could build bikes that look like an American performance bike, a Corvette Z06 or Mustang Bullitt or Tesla roadster on two wheels, where people who don't even ride motorcycles think "MAN i want one of those, don't even know why, but suddenly two weeks comparing the twisty roads in the Rockies with the ones on the California coast and in New England seems like a really good way to appreciate America this summer."

Combine that with, say, Erik Buell coming up with a way to - shit, I dunno, make the chassis serve as an oil tank? Make a single giant brake rotor bolted to the spokes near the rim instead of the hub? Some other kind of Erik-Buell-engineering/magic that enhances a bike's sport touring ability, maybe a catheter and a catalyst that lets you use your pee as fuel?

Yeah, I prefer that alternate-universe to the one where neither Erik Buell nor Motus can make a living building awesome motorcycles.

Meanwhile, the closest thing we have that I can think of is Ducati Dave in his garage south of Memphis with some time on his hands, some booze, some coffee, a welder, the carbon-fiber 916 bodywork I sold back to him, two Fazers, three GTS1000s, and the voices in his head.

[johnod]

Don't think that catheter thing is going to help sell any bikes, not to me anyway.

[TexasDave]

Everything I read about Motus bikes said they were very nice. Making them more aesthetically pleasing might have sold a few more but the high price was the deciding factor. The market for bike sales is getting smaller and those buyers who can afford a $38,000 bike is smaller yet.