Indy Impressions

We’re back from the Indianapolis Dealer Expo and we thought we’d share a few of our impressions with you.   I don’t have any photos from the show for a good reason…the booth was so packed the entire weekend there just wasn’t a chance to grab photos.   Okay, on with the blog…here’s the skinny on Indy. 

For starters, the Indy Dealer Expo is not your typical motorcycle show. It isn’t supposed to be open to the public. The show is designed for motorcycle manufacturers, motorcycle accessory manufacturers, and motorcycle service providers to be able to display their goods and services to folks in the industry. What all that means is that the primary show attendees are supposed to be dealers. It’s not that Advanstar (the show organizer) has anything against the public. The intent here is for the Indy show to provide folks in the trade a venue for reaching the dealers.

The show was good for us, and the interest in CSC Motorcycles was intense. Although we’ve advertised extensively in great publications (Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Cabela’s, Popular Mechanics, Motorcycle Classics, Walneck’s, and others), it was obvious from the reactions at the show that many dealers don’t know about us. The typical reaction was a double-take. When the dealers saw our bike they knew it was unique; they just didn’t know right away what it was. More than a few recognized the Mustang in our bikes. Many others didn’t know anything about the Mustang and they just fell in love with our bike for what it is.

Many large multi-dealerships attended Indy, and we are signing up several. Yep, we’re on a roll. We’ve signed several new dealers recently (you read about it right here in this blog), and we have more coming. Like I said, Indy was good for us.

There weren’t many Harley dealers at Indy. That’s because the V-Twin Expo, a similar dealer expo that caters to the Harley crowd, was held just a couple of weeks earlier. There’s some talk that the V-Twin Expo and the Indy Expo may merge next year, and we think that’s probably a good thing. We do well with the Harley crowd and with Harley dealers. California Scooters are a natural complement to a Harley-Davidson dealership from styling, quality, and many other perspectives. We don’t weigh 800 pounds or cost as much as a Harley, but if you’re looking for a light bike with a reasonable price, we fit right in. More than a few Harley dealers understand that.

The number of exhibitors at the Indy show was still limited compared to prior years. That’s undoubtedly a result of the Great Recession. The industry is still feeling it. But things are looking up, especially in the small bike arena.

The interest in scooters and small bikes at Indy was very high. With gas prices moving up sharply, people realize that small fuel efficient vehicles (bikes like ours) are poised for dramatically higher sales. The dealers who have been around for awhile remember what happened the last time gas topped $5 per gallon (that was 4 or 5 years ago). When that crunch hit, scooter dealers who were selling 60 or so bikes a year were suddenly selling 80 to 90 bikes a month. I remember that one of my friends who owns a Vespa/BMW dealership was buying Vespas at retail prices out of state and shipping them in to meet the demand. Folks seem to recognize that we’re headed there again, and recent events in the Middle East will probably make what happened in the last gas crunch seem insignificant. I believe scooters and small motorcycles will continue to move from being a discretionary toy to basic transportation.

There were quite a few folks at Indy (too many, in our opinion) who weren’t dealers (but wanted to be). These were folks who see small bikes as the next big thing, but from our perspective, they are not viable CSC Motorcycle dealer candidates. We’ll only sign on established motorcycle and motor scooter dealers with superior reputations. We might be able to sell a few more bikes by signing up every Tom, Dick, and Harry who thinks it might be fun to be a dealer, but that would jeopardize your ownership experience. We want every aspect of owning a CSC Motorcycle to be superior, and that’s why we’re extremely selective in adding dealers to the California Scooter family. Our feeling is that the folks who run the Indy show could have been more diligent in who they admitted to the show (the wannabees looking to chase a quick buck sucked up valuable time).

We were approached by several dealers who lost a bundle (and their reputations) by selling cheap Chinese scooters. These were dealers who found (along with their customers) they had taken on poor quality bikes (you know the drill…bikes selling for under $2,000, with 30-day warranties that are expired at the time of sale, breakdowns within days of purchase, and no replacement parts). Well, word spreads quickly these days (think Twitter and Facebook; like Hosni and Muammar learned), and the verdict on the Chinese scooters came in pretty quickly. The dealers who were chasing these dollars are not motorcycle or scooter enthusiasts, and they’re not our kind of dealers. CSC Motorcycles wouldn’t look right in the same showroom as these machines. It’s just not who we are, or who you are.

We sure hear a lot about Chinese bikes. Some people dismiss us because they think we’re Chinese. As you know, we are not. Many of our components come from Taiwan and we’re proud of that. There’s a world of difference between Taiwan and China. Taiwan is way out front. And, there’s a world of difference between China and the US. As you know, our bikes are designed, assembled, inspected, and tested right here in La Verne (on the other side of the wall from where I am typing this). Sometimes this dismissive “Chinese Scooter” perception gets frustrating. It’s almost as if we need to change our name to the “We are not Chinese” Scooter Company.

Let’s talk about this a bit. A few years ago, the US experienced an influx of large numbers of Chinese bikes. Many (I’d say most) had terrible quality, and consumers learned this the hard way. They found they were buying short-lived, throwaway bikes. The dealers were burned badly by the experience, too.

And it didn’t stop with just lousy quality. A few of the Chinese bike importers were engaged in outright criminal activity (and they paid a heavy price). They were caught bringing in bikes that had not met EPA and CARB emissions requirements. I won’t name names, but I’ll tell you that you can check what I’m saying by asking my friends Manny, Moe, and Jack. I’ll also tell you that every single California Scooter is a fully street legal motorcycle meeting all state and federal requirements, including the very stringent California Air Resources Board emissions requirements. CARB is right up the road from us, and we have a good relationship with those guys. They are just as eager to see an American product do well as we are. They’re good people.

So, back to the Chinese bike issue. The Chinese bikes I mentioned above don’t have lousy quality because they came from China. They have lousy quality because they are made by lousy companies. They just happen to be in China. There are many other companies in China that make great products. I’ve worked in other organizations that bought products and materials from Chinese companies, and what they provided was of superior quality.

You may not realize it, but when you think you are buying an American product, at least a portion of it may very well come from China. If you think your BMW or Triumph motorcycle is made in Germany or England, the laugh may be on you. Even if you ride the proud American original (you know, the one with the bar and shield), well, spend a few minutes researching your bike. You’ll discover that some of that super-sweet “potato-potato-potato” music is being sung on off-shore components.

So, here’s the deal: CSC Motorcycles are not Chinese bikes. We’re saying that to dispel any notion that we are a Chinese bike. We’re not saying it to badmouth the Chinese. And I’m not telling you we’ll never have any Chinese components on our bikes. When we find competitively-priced components from reputable companies meeting our ultra-high quality standards (and we are always evaluating new components), we’ll buy them. There’s nothing we’d like better than to source everything right here in the USA, but that’s not always possible for a number of reasons. Wherever we source parts, though, you can be certain of this: We’ll continue to deliver the best motorcycles on the planet to you. CSC Motorcycle riders want high quality, original American motorcycles. And that’s what we deliver.

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If you’re in Indianapolis and you want to go to a motorcycle show open to the public where you can see CSC Motorcycles, you are in luck!  This very weekend, Steve Lorenz of Arcadia Cushman (one of our great dealers) will be at the Indiana Motorcycle Expo in Booth 414.  The Indiana Motorcycle Expo is in the Exposition Hall on the Indiana State Fair Grounds, and they’ll be open Friday through Sunday.  Check out this YouTube video of the upcoming show!