Harley-Davidson Bronx definitely delayed, may be canceled

Late last year, Harley-Davidson took its new Bronx naked streetfighter to Milan's EICMA show. The middleweight bike's frame cradled Harley's new liquid-cooled Revolution Max V-twin engine in the smaller 975-cc displacement, promising more than 115 horsepower and 70 pound-feet of torque. At the same show, Harley showed its first adventurer tourer, the Pan America, which would fit the 1250-cc Revolution Max making at least 145 hp and 90 lb-ft. The company told the public that both bikes would launch this year. Since that event in Italy, Harley's been through several upheavals, including replacing its CEO and reevaluating its positions globally, from products to manufacturing. As part of an overhaul called Rewire, the Milwaukee company said it would cut 30% of planned future product. As Motorcycle recently discovered, the cull apparently includes the Bronx.

During Harley's Q2 presentation at the end of last month, new CEO Jochen Zeitz made no mention of the Bronx, but confirmed the Pan America would launch in 2021. When asked about the Bronx, he responded, "I think that at this time, adventure-touring will be the focus going into next year. Other product line related decisions, we will be revealing in real time, so it’s not something we can or want to talk about at this time." Last week, Motorcycle realized Harley-Davidson had removed all mention of the Bronx from the Future Vehicles page sometime after August 2, and scrubbed the bike from the media site. There's a High Performance Custom Model "planned for 2021" as well, and with everything else going on, it seems H-D wants to focus on those two launches. A spokesperson told Motorcycle, "Harley-Davidson’s immediate new product focus in 2021 will be on the launch of Pan America, our first Adventure Touring motorcycle. In order to ensure an outstanding launch for Pan America, we will not be launching the Bronx streetfighter motorcycle next year."

All this means at the moment is that the Bronx is in limbo. There's no doubt Harley's noted the reaction to the bike and the Revolution Max engine, and the furor over the Bronx's potential cancellation. Harley finding its feet to launch the Bronx properly makes sense. Killing the Bronx would be all kinds of shame. Later this year, H-D is meant to reveal the way forward in a plan called Hardwire. We've already crossed our fingers that the Bronx reappears then. We could also learn more about the cafe racer and flat-track bikes Harley's been developing behind the scenes.