EBR Motorcycles is finished… again!

EBR Motorcycles confirms ‘wind down’

It’s beginning to become a regular occurrence, but EBR Motorcycles looks to be finished, again. A statement released by EBR – the firm that rose out of the ashes of Buell –  has confirmed that the company will be winding down its production operations as of next week, with a sale of production equipment and excess parts happening from March. It looks like this time company will be finished for good, though we have said this before.

After filing for bankruptcy as recently as April 2015, the Wisconsin company managed to find a last-minute investment from Hero MotoCorp Ltd, which owned 49% of the company and American Metals LLC with the aim to get the EBR Motorcycles back up and running as a fully formed manufacturer.

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The decision to “wind down” comes just a couple of months after the announcement of the Black Lightning, a street focused version of the company’s 1190SX model. A statement from the company confirms: “The decision was a tough one for EBR as it has been solely focused on the growth and building EBR for success.” With a failure to meet sales and production targets “this difficult decision was based primarily on EBR facing significant headwinds with signing new dealers, which is key to sales and growth for a new company. In addition, EBR has had limited production in 2016 and 2017 that was under goal. The combination of slow sales and industry announcements of other major OEM brands closing or cutting production only magnified the challenges faced by EBR.”

EBR Motorcycles was formed off the back of Buell motorcycles as an independently-owned outfit in 2009 after Harley-Davidson, who wholly owned Buell, offloaded the marque to focus on its own core brand.

The company released the 1190RX superbike and 1190SX super-naked which were also joined by the new Black Lightning model. The bikes were well-received but sales have been slow, with the company reporting that being under target has been one of the significant contributing factors in the decision to cease production operations.

EBR will continue to honour warranties on their motorcycles and have pledged that they will also provide support and parts to dealers and riders, though they haven’t confirmed a longstanding solution to parts availability further down the line.

Buell aren’t giving up all hope though and will “continue to review strategic alternatives with interested investors regarding production operations”. 

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