RCinNC
Well-Known Member
Yes, I should have clarified, walk into a Harley shop in the past decade.....
But even with their abysmal handling of the Buell subsidiary in their dealerships, there was still at least evidence in the dealership that a Buell existed. The dealership I bought my Road King from in Pennsylvania had an area sectioned off for Buells, and they had models on display and sales promotional material on their line of bikes available if you were interested. I'd been in other dealerships in PA at random while I lived there, and they also advertised at least some connection with Buell, though the salepeople didn't necessarily grab your hand and drag you over to the Buell section to look at them. If they didn't have floor models, they at least had a Buell sign and promotional stuff. So if I went in a Harley dealership in those days before 2009, I would at minimum know that there was such a bike as a Buell, and there would be posters showing them, so there was at least a token attempt to acquaint a potential customer with the models.
The only Yamaha dealership I've ever been in that had S10 promotional stuff was at Romney, where I bought mine. Since 2014 I've been in four different Yamaha dealerships for various things like inspections and buying parts, and none of them carried any sort of advertising that would make a buyer familiar that the S10 was a product in their line. The last dealership I was at had literally never seen one in person. Out of the four, only one had ever sold an S10. If you want to draw a more accurate comparison between Harley and Yamaha and their handing of the promotion of a bike they actually made, that would be the same as walking into an HD dealer and seeing no evidence that a bike called a Road King existed. Harley aggressively promotes their own brand in their dealerships; if you walk into one, you're most likely going to see a floor model of each line, and if it's a really small dealership, you'll at least see sales material for each line of bikes. The salespeople will know about each line of Harleys, and the various permutations in each line. I'll go out on a limb and say the same won't be true if you go into the average Yamaha dealer (or multi-brand dealer) and ask questions about the Super Tenere.
But even with their abysmal handling of the Buell subsidiary in their dealerships, there was still at least evidence in the dealership that a Buell existed. The dealership I bought my Road King from in Pennsylvania had an area sectioned off for Buells, and they had models on display and sales promotional material on their line of bikes available if you were interested. I'd been in other dealerships in PA at random while I lived there, and they also advertised at least some connection with Buell, though the salepeople didn't necessarily grab your hand and drag you over to the Buell section to look at them. If they didn't have floor models, they at least had a Buell sign and promotional stuff. So if I went in a Harley dealership in those days before 2009, I would at minimum know that there was such a bike as a Buell, and there would be posters showing them, so there was at least a token attempt to acquaint a potential customer with the models.
The only Yamaha dealership I've ever been in that had S10 promotional stuff was at Romney, where I bought mine. Since 2014 I've been in four different Yamaha dealerships for various things like inspections and buying parts, and none of them carried any sort of advertising that would make a buyer familiar that the S10 was a product in their line. The last dealership I was at had literally never seen one in person. Out of the four, only one had ever sold an S10. If you want to draw a more accurate comparison between Harley and Yamaha and their handing of the promotion of a bike they actually made, that would be the same as walking into an HD dealer and seeing no evidence that a bike called a Road King existed. Harley aggressively promotes their own brand in their dealerships; if you walk into one, you're most likely going to see a floor model of each line, and if it's a really small dealership, you'll at least see sales material for each line of bikes. The salespeople will know about each line of Harleys, and the various permutations in each line. I'll go out on a limb and say the same won't be true if you go into the average Yamaha dealer (or multi-brand dealer) and ask questions about the Super Tenere.