4/2/2023 0 Comments 1970s mini bike chopperAermacchiĪermacchi is an Italian aircraft manufacturer that started dabbling in motorcycles after World War II. Here’s a quick account of whatever happened to the Harley Davidson mini bike. Not a lot of people even know that H-D sold mini bikes at one point in history because this model was much short-lived. H-D did its best to compete with the Japanese Moneybike buy creating a mini bike of its own-the Harley Davidson Shortster. During this time, American bikers were first introduced to the original Honda Monkeybike, a mini bike designed to entice and carry both children and adult riders. Japanese motorcycles were more affordable and therefore made biking accessible to the masses. The Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM) was introduced to North American markets in the 60s to wildly popular acclaim. Most of Harley’s inadequate efforts in 70s manufacturing were due to the rise of a competitor in the American markets-Japan. The decrease in quality resulted to a decrease in sales, which translated to a decrease in customer loyalty-something that the brand has been working to cultivate since its founding. Apart from the production of the Baja model, H-D also saw a sustainable decrease in workforce, which ultimately meant lower quality bikes. In 1969, American Machine and Foundry (AMF) bought Harley Davidson and effected changes within the infrastructure of the company that brought out the worst in the brand. Let’s just say that this was their story in the 70s, quite unfortunately, and the H-D mini bike just happened to come out during this era. In short, H-D oversold and underperformed. However, those new Baja fans realized quickly that the Baja they bought weren’t the same bikes that the Harley team raced and won with. The story goes that Harley’s racing team won so many races with the Baja that people started buying the model. This alone exemplifies everything weird about Harley during the 60s to the 70s the brand wanted popularity so badly that it was willing to sacrifice quality performance over it. This was the era when we saw H-D diving in to dirt bike and motocross racing with the Baja model. This was a period in the company’s timeline that featured much experimentation when it came to motorcycles. The 70s was an odd time for the world, let alone Harley Davidson.
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