Last night, at midnight, Polaris
Industries Inc. issued a press release announcing that the company “will
immediately begin winding down its Victory Motorcycles brand and
related operations. Polaris will assist dealers in liquidating existing
inventories while continuing to supply parts for a period of 10 years,
along with providing service and warranty coverage to Victory dealers
and owners.”
Polaris, a well known snowmobile and All
Terrain Vehicle manufacturer based in Medina, Minnesota, started
selling Victory Motorcycles in 1998 at the height of a boom in sales of
Harley-Davidson bikes. In 2011, Polaris bought the rights to the Indian
brand and began manufacturing Indian Motorcycles. Polaris will continue
to manufacture Indians and Slingshots. Slingshots are three wheeled,
reverse tricycles that Polaris calls “Three-wheeled roadsters.”
Polaris announced that discontinuing
Victory will allow the company to concentrate on its Indian brand, which
the company thinks has better worldwide recognition. Polaris will
continue to build Indians at its plants in Spirit Lake, Iowa and
Spearfish, South Dakota. The company builds Slingshots in Huntsville,
Alabama.
Corporate Speak
Polaris announced, “Several factors
influenced today’s announcement. Victory has struggled to establish the
market share needed to succeed and be profitable. The competitive
pressures of a challenging motorcycle market have increased the
headwinds for the brand. Given the significant additional investments
required for Victory to launch new global platforms that meet changing
consumer preferences, and considering the strong performance and growth
potential of Indian Motorcycle, the decision to more narrowly focus
Polaris’ energy and investments became quite clear.”
In a supplementary announcement, Polaris
said the “decision to enter the heavyweight motorcycle market in 1998
stemmed from a desire to further diversify the company’s product lines.”
At the time, the market for big, American made bikes seemed strong and
the only competition was Harley. But the market for these bikes
collapsed. “Sales of Victory peaked in 2012 and has steadily declined
over the subsequent years In 2015, Victory represented only three
percent of total Polaris sales; at retail, Victory dealers, on average,
sold only about 20 units per year.”
“This was an incredibly difficult
decision for me, my team and the Polaris Board of Directors,” Polaris
Industries Chairman and CEO Scott Wine said in the press release. “Over
the past 18 years, we have invested not only resources, but our hearts
and souls, into forging the Victory Motorcycles brand, and we are
exceptionally proud of what our team has accomplished. Since inception,
our teams have designed and produced nearly 60 Victory models that have
been honored with 25 of the industry’s top awards. The experience,
knowledge, infrastructure and capability we’ve built in those 18 years
gave us the confidence to acquire and develop the Indian Motorcycle
brand, so I would like to express my gratitude to everyone associated
with Victory Motorcycles and celebrate your many contributions.”