I am aware that a few of the closures, such as Boardtracker, had nothing to do with Rewire.

It appeared as I researched each dealer that many of the Closures were opportunistic in nature, as was likely the case with Black River Falls. Many owners were simply in a position where it was time to get out while the carrot was dangled in front of them.

After looking at some data, these are next likely states to see closure of dealers.

IL, WV, VT, CT - these states are experiencing negative population growth; dealers in these states will need to attract buyers from neighboring states to remain viable
VT is already down to a single dealership
WV has more dealerships per capita than any in this group but appears to have twice as many dealerships as it needs
CT could be expected to lose at least one dealership and possibly more.
IL still has 26 dealerships. It is likely one of the more fertile grounds for dealership reduction.
I expect no less than five dealership closings out of this group of four states.

There are seventeen states whose population is neither in decline nor growing - they are just treading water when it comes to population trends. Of these states, WI, PA, OH, MI, and NY all have in excess of 20 dealers each and these will be where the MoCo would get their next massive reduction in dealerships. Don't be surprised if a quarter to a third of dealerships are closed in these five states and it could be as many as a half the dealerships in Wisconsin. Out of all seventeen states, I expect no less than 38 dealership closings.

There are eight states where the population is growing, but not at an exorbitant rate. Of these states you'll see the most dealership closures in IA, IN, and MD with a sprinkling from NH, OK, and MA. Overall, I would expect 20 dealership closures in these eight states.

Twenty-one states are booming in population growth. Some of these, such as FL, TX, and CA are saturated in dealerships and could likely lose a few despite their large populations. SD, ND, and MT have far more dealerships than their populations can support. TN and NC have more than 20 dealerships each - some likely ripe for closure. Out of these 21 states I would expect 30 dealership closures.

Obviously, I don't have access to the data that HD is using but it is clear to me that, excluding geographical distribution and financially unique dealerships, they are driving toward having no more than 1 dealership per 500k people. In some states they are simply well in excess of this density. Using my density model I can see them closing about 93 more dealerships getting them to a total of 160 closures and 579 active dealers. Getting to 200 dealerships would require them to be really aggressive (closing an additional 34 dealers) and drive to a density slightly over 1 per 600k people.

Don't misunderstand - this is not what I want HD to do and, while some closures are inevitable for a variety of reasons, I don't advocate reducing the revenue income base. Closing dealerships will result in a decline in revenue to the MoCo. The only question is whether they can drive up new bike prices to offset that loss in revenue. My bet is that they can't - largely due to the demographic problem and also due to macroeconomic issues (wealth gap, etc...).

I could be entirely wrong in my analysis. I'm not an MBA but I work with them enough to have an idea of how they think. I think Jochen Zeitz is making a deal with the devil thinking he can cut costs and raise prices. Cutting costs is easy to do. Raising prices not so much. He could very easily tank demand for new bikes if he's not careful. He's betting that the American public has an appetite for new HD bikes that they may very well not have. (He's probably thinking that an American owning a Harley is akin to a German owning a BMW.) It's hard to sell a new bike at a premium price if you don't make it with premium components. The stock suspensions on Touring models automatically disqualify them from being classified as "Premium". The lower end bikes, while good in their own right, clearly aren't "Premium" and he's going to get no price increase on those. Exactly how much higher than a decent car can you price a new, non-CVO Touring model? Unlike the days of yore, CVO models having been sitting unsold on salesfloors. That should be some indication the market for new Harleys isn't what it used to be. One can buy a pretty nice automobile these days for the price of a new Harley Touring model. At some price point even devoted riders are going to "Nope" their way out of a new Harley and stick with what they have or buy Used. That won't help Jochen at all.

 

Petersons in Miami is not closed, neither of their locations are closed

 

There were four Peterson's locations in Miami in the HOG book. Two are still open but two appear to be closed. Look at the addresses for the closed locations. Perhaps one or both were souvenir stores. It can be difficult to tell whether closed locations were full service or souvenir stores.

 

I looked through the OP 's list, none on there that I ever visited. Someone on here thought MOCO was trying to drive up bike prices, maybe but probably not. I assume they are trying to eliminate unnecessary overhead by tightening up the supply chain from one end to the other, including the customer facing segment. One thing that is funny though, read through the Forum. Page after page takes dealers to task, bitching and whining, "stealerships", etc. Now close a few of them down and the bitching starts again. Maybe they are doing us a favor based on the dealer complaints? Oh well, what do I know, people like to complain. Reminds me of when I was working in management for a Fortune 500 company. Of course all the smart guys who knew how to run the company were sitting around the breakroom eating out of a lunch bucket. Where else would the smart guys be?

 

I appreciate this list and posted this so I will see your update prior to next seasons touring.

Good comments and I had visited at least 7 of these locations. I understand it as in my business, many are just calling it quits as well. Never before has an economy been so destroyed by so few. Oh, I think Covid is real enough, but I thought at first this was just a dry run for a serious virus. I wonder if we will ever know the truth.

Yes, I do think that we had too many dealers, like we have too many subway restaurants and too many coffee to go stores. I hope with the new direction, new pricing, that reliability and warranty issues are the first to be addressed.

 

Winona Harley was a satellite store of LaCrosse Harley.

 

I can confirm "Goe" in Angleton, TX. Sucks too, at start of COVID my brother bought his first Harley, we were going to ride there from the Houston area, would have been a good ride. I wanted to use them as my main HD dealer for service work because the ride is nice, I called last weekend to set it up and they've closed their doors.

 

New Bern HD in New Bern NC is closing in December, I forget the exact date

 

How about Abernatheys in Union City Tennessee? Not a victim of Rewire but a victim of todays politics.

 

This will be a worldwide operation (closing dealerships) here in Brazil we currently have 26 dealerships and given the change in the HD contract/business model, about 6 of them will be closing by the end of this month, and probably more 4 will also be closing in a near future