Why Are Modern Motorcycles so UGLY??
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:40 am
Hello All,
I found this post on a site called Devitt by Nick Cleaver from 2015 and I think it hits the nail on the head :
"Basically I suspect most motorcycle designers are aged 25-35. In Japan in particular (because they seem to be making the ugliest bikes at the moment) thats the exact age of people who have grown up with a manga comic, transformers etc type influence. Hell almost the whole population is trapped in some juvenile, little girl fancying, comic con, toy obsessed perpetual childhood at the moment. No wonder their influences are kiddie comic related. As a result they are designing lumpty bumpty, sharp edged ugly crap with anthropomorphic faces like bloody terminators or optimus prime. These looks appeal to teenagers or twenty somethings with a cupboard full of broken transformers toys or boxes full of thumbed manga comics. But heres the rub. Those self same teenagers or mentaly juvenile people, all the fancy dancy transformer bikes are designed to please are too expensive for them to actualy buy. Its 35+ year olds in most European and American markets that buy big bikes. And in the new big economies like India they are relatively unaffected by these influences so have different tastes. Result? The arse has started to drop out of the Japanese bike market as the looks fail to appeal to those most able to afford them in markets other than Japan, and the technology has become too superfast then throw it away to appeal as well. Thats why the European manufacturers are doing better these days. They are designed by mature minded people with an eye for classic design and usefullness on the real roads we ride on, and therefore appeal to the same people most able to afford the bikes. That is why bikes Japanese bikes in particular are getting uglier and why European manufacturers are resurgent. And Unless the Japanese grasp this they will go the way of the old British bike manufacturers. Believing in their technical superiority over everyone else and in designs that they want to make rather than what the customers want to buy. Tell me I’m wrong heh heh."
Long live the bevel head Ducatis.
Sincerely,
Kara
I found this post on a site called Devitt by Nick Cleaver from 2015 and I think it hits the nail on the head :
"Basically I suspect most motorcycle designers are aged 25-35. In Japan in particular (because they seem to be making the ugliest bikes at the moment) thats the exact age of people who have grown up with a manga comic, transformers etc type influence. Hell almost the whole population is trapped in some juvenile, little girl fancying, comic con, toy obsessed perpetual childhood at the moment. No wonder their influences are kiddie comic related. As a result they are designing lumpty bumpty, sharp edged ugly crap with anthropomorphic faces like bloody terminators or optimus prime. These looks appeal to teenagers or twenty somethings with a cupboard full of broken transformers toys or boxes full of thumbed manga comics. But heres the rub. Those self same teenagers or mentaly juvenile people, all the fancy dancy transformer bikes are designed to please are too expensive for them to actualy buy. Its 35+ year olds in most European and American markets that buy big bikes. And in the new big economies like India they are relatively unaffected by these influences so have different tastes. Result? The arse has started to drop out of the Japanese bike market as the looks fail to appeal to those most able to afford them in markets other than Japan, and the technology has become too superfast then throw it away to appeal as well. Thats why the European manufacturers are doing better these days. They are designed by mature minded people with an eye for classic design and usefullness on the real roads we ride on, and therefore appeal to the same people most able to afford the bikes. That is why bikes Japanese bikes in particular are getting uglier and why European manufacturers are resurgent. And Unless the Japanese grasp this they will go the way of the old British bike manufacturers. Believing in their technical superiority over everyone else and in designs that they want to make rather than what the customers want to buy. Tell me I’m wrong heh heh."
Long live the bevel head Ducatis.
Sincerely,
Kara