New Harley Sport Bikes

Is this a picture of a new Harley Davidson sport bike? Well, yes it is — sort of. The picture is an Brutale 910 made by the MV Agusta motorcycle company in Italy. It produces about 6,000 motorcycles a year and sells about one-sixth of those through importers in the United States. Are they cool? Well, Bruce Banner will be riding one in the upcoming Bat Man flick, "The Dark Knight" so you be the judge. Why did I say it was a Harley Davidson? HD recently purchased the company for about $109 mil. Many think that this will give the Harley Davidson "instant credibility," both abroad and here at home in the sport bike market. It appears that the MV Agusta motorcycle company had started falling on hard times, due to the weak U. S. dollar and otherwise weak sales. Smelling a good deal Harley snapped up the company. Around $70M of the $109M purchase price is targeted at paying of MV’s existing debt, which means that it gets to restart as a zero debt company. While the news may be great for motorcyclists interested in sport bikes, the news wasn’t well received by HD shareholders. On the news, HD stock (HOG) dropped to a 52 week low and closed at $32.33 on Fri., July 11.