There's a line in Harley-Davidson's "Back to the Bricks" strategic plan that was the impetus for this article, as it's utterly confounding in every sense of that word. The new future-forward plan, the plan to right the ship, as it were, reads, "The Company (Harley-Davidson) is planning actions to enable dealers to double profitability in 2026 and then double it again by 2029."
I say this as a lover of the brand, who wants to see Harley survive into perpetuity, and who's genuinely supportive of everyone working there, but was whoever wrote that line stoned out of their minds? I get that weed isn't yet legal in Wisconsin, but that, along with a few other choice ideas contained within that document, sounds like my buddies and me after a few joints around a campfire back in the day.
Because, as someone who's been covering the industry for a decade now, and who's ridden the company's motorcycles, and watched the overall sales trend and industry shift this way and that, unless Harley-Davidson is planning to stop selling motorcycles and switch to said illegal substance, converting the company's plants to...well, growing plants, just how are you planning on quadrupling profitability in less than five years at a time when the world is quite literally on fire?
