Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Beyond Lincoln-the next move 1S ours • It's been about a mo n th sinc e our brief en counter w it h East Kawabungaland (p rofessionally kno wn as the Lin co ln, Nebraska Kawasak i plant ). S till di gesti ng it all, I can get reall y di sco ur agedthat o u t o f some 10 million m o to rcyclist s in th ese Un ite d St ate s, we ' co u ld n ' t have distilled a few hundted with the foresight, p rofes sional skill a nd financi al horsepower to have d one so mething similar before this. Instead, we had to wait for some very astu te j ap an ese to te am with some equ ally as tute manu facturing profe ssionals (n o n-rid ers, at t hat!) to show us how. May b e I' m being u nfair to " m y fellow Ame ricans"; th e Seventies, so far, has been a rough de cade for people with vision, At fir st it seemed the ground w as rip e for pl owing, especially afte r Nixon sta rted the first round 0 f dollar devaluations. Being o n the ro ad to m a king imported goods m ore expensive an d domestic stuff more pri ce -competitive, it seemed that an y o n e who co u ld have seen the handwriting on the wall co u ld have made a killing at the expense of th e auto industry when the Arab oil embargo hit. Not so, for a number of reasons. On e was the credit c ru n ch' that hit about the time p eople were getting ideas about a hypothe ti cal Great American Moto rcycle, It seemed every in d u stry in the world was borrowing money and driving interest r a tes out of sight. A good b usiness rule of th u mb is, if you borrow m oney , invest that money in a p roject that will retu rn you doub le that rate of interest in profit, With prime corporatio ns be ing as ked to pay 12 percent ann ually fo r m oney, t h a t m eant lookin g for a 24·25 percent re turn, In th e p ast, b usi nesses often we nt ahead with p rojects t ha t cou ld be ex p ecte d to re tu rn 15 -20 p ercent a nd ac ce pt the n ormal amo un t of risk th a t goes with any business ga mble, In an era wh en the world seemed to be comi ng unglu ed , t o com m it b ig m one y to m o to rcy cles w o uld have ta ken a fin an ci er wi th a cas t iron jock. Another hassle was sho rtages , With all t h at borrowed m oney , industry was buying everything in sight. T he au to, ap pliance. and co nstruc tio n ind ust ries were gobbling up steel, copper, pl astics. al u mi nu m and rubber (n o t to me ntion oil a n d gas ) so fast that suppliers o f these things had to flat tum down new cu st o mers, Same thing applied to he avy production m ach in ery. Vo u were a new firm a n d needed ra w m ateri als? T ough, old c us to mers cam e first. You needed an alu mi n u m diecasting? Come bac k in two years, we're serv icing existing accounts only . New machinery was on a two year b acklog and rising. Then the o il embargo hit, and the firs t th ing to dry u p w as plastics (a lot of existing good iem akers felt that one ). Yup, plastic s are m ad e from oil. With that, a viciou s cycle was just begin n ing , an d m ost b us in ess men with id eas de cid ed to ride t h is one out. Ide as co uld w ait. Then th er e was th e gov ernm en t in its man y forms. O SHA, th e Occupational Safety an d He al th Act, w as tu rning the w or kp lac e upside-down. ' (As a production engineer for two firms during this p eriod, I go t to sa vo r this particular b oo ndoggle fir st -hand.] Again, damn fe w individuals had th e hair to design new plants or ne w workstations , knowing so me civil se rvan t co uld c o me in , shut them down, a nd fo rce the m to do a jo h o ver (re alizing th a t all t his ti me an other part of t he co m pan y is try in g to d evelo p a vir gin marke t for a product that can 't b e produced be cause of th e hassles) . Wait an d sec fo r a year or two , u ntil th is thin g settles down , . . As to the an ti-pollution regulations fo r industry, a prospective m o to rcy cle builder co u ld live with them with respect to h is own p la n t . The kind o f pollution-control te chnology needed for an asse mbly and light fabrication plan t was pr etty well set. But there was a nastier an gle that still hasn 't been re solved - the future of the two -stroke engine. According to current methods of measurement , tw o -stroke emissions are two to five t im es as bad as fo ur-str o ke e m issio ns on most co un ts . Both the State of Cal ifornia and the Federal EPA are about to write the two-stroke out of existence. If you be lieve that 's not possible. then watch Ya maha, Su zuki and Kawasaki scramble to put fo ur-stroke street bi kes on the market. That's a setback t o many wo u ld-b e builders, since a two-stro ke sin gle is by far the easiest thing in the world to design and b uild from scratch. Now, in ad dition to a basic p iston , rod a nd crank assembly, all of which are relatively si mple, there ' s go t to be a cam, valve gear. and h igh -p ressu re lubri cation, none of which arc all th a t sim p le. So everybody who was doing th ei r homew o rk o n two-stro kes is no w waitin g fo r t he other shoe to drop and meanwh ile re -doing the ir homewor k on fo u r-strokes. Right now , yo u're th inking, "Build engines in th is c ou n try? That 's impossible." Bunk, There 's nothing so a we-insp iring abo ut a m o torcy cl e engine, even a four-stroke multi is simple as a stone ax e , co mpared to some of th e p roducts of our te chnology . The puzzle is m akin g the p ie ce s co me to ge ther at an ac ceptabl e price in an era when th e govern me n t is h auling the economy in 10 differe n t d irections at o nc e . T ake cran ksh afts. for instance. An" sp ee d p arts sh op in Southe rn Cali fo rn i~ ca n hog a n acce p ta b le c ran ks h aft o u t of ste el b ille t . That's if you do n't mi n d takin g an 80 pound bi llet to m ake a 20 po u n d cran k a n d watch in g the scrap p ro ce ssor h aul a way 6 0 p ound s of ch ips . Not to mention, it takes a long time, a nd good machinists can sti ll practicall y write th eir o wn wag e . So a good cran kshaft should of ne cessi ty be struck in a se t of forg ing dies (we 're assumin g a one-piece cran k here), dtilled for lubrication, rough machin ed, process hardened, and it s jo urnals finish gro und. There arc p lenty of go o d job shops that wi ll do this in convenient p ro d u c tion b at ches. Same goes for sp lined ,sh aft s and gea rs. Differe nt shop , th o u gh (usually) . Trouble is, until the Car b usiness star ted to dry up , fo rge and process h ardening shops were am o ng those that we re the mos t swamped. Seems that at t he same time de m and for their product was risin g, the government was snuffing the more marginal o nes on pollution and safety (OSHA, again) grou nds. Same thing was h ap p enin g to the alum in u m foundry industry , o n ly w orse. And the y're the ones y o u 'd go for heads, cylinder b arrels, an d lower e nd cases, not to men tio n hubs, fo rk sliders an d tr iple clam ps . Begin to se c now wh y e verybody 's been lay in g low? Vet th ere 's that re d-a n d- wh it e Kawasaki plant, sitting o u t ther e b y the Lin coln jetport saying, "Chin up, Am erica. y o u Can do it. " So h o w, an d why , d id they embark in the fa ce o f al l th e hassles? In business, it' s sometime s smar t to mo ve in while everyone els e is laying low. Kawasaki already h ad a stone-axe fo u r-stro ke twin; felt they were re ady to me et all go vern me n t regs. present o r fores een; and sa w the oth er pi e ces of the puzzl e co m ing to gether. So they moved. I noticed something else they had go ing for them at t h e p lant opening reception, a semi-secret sign of the tremendous fin ancial lever age of a bi g co rpo ratio n. You see, if you alre ady have money, yo u ofte n do n 't have to spend it. be ca use p eo pl e a lways see m an x io us to lend y o u mon e y ins tead . 'I11e p lace w as crawling w it h b a n kers who had helped unde rwrite th e Lin coln o p era t io n, thus keeping the ac tua l tr an sfer of cash fro m j ap an to the U.S. a t a m in imum . That helped. Two t h in gs m ad e their move especially timely , and I want to co m e down hard on these, because th ey h ave a real bearing on th e rest o f the wo uld-be American m o to rcy cl e industry wh ich is still kic king a b ou t in the womb, so to speak. On e is the fact that having the Ameri can au to industry, home appl icance industry and construction industry all go co llec tivel y belly-up a t o nc e h as just ab o u t fre ed up all the overstrained network of vendors and raw m aterial suppliers th a t stood in the road before. Instead of "Don 't call us , we'll call you when we're not so busy," it's U\Ve c an do business, but it 's go ing to co st. That's an imp rovement . So me sup p liers are simply shutting down in an effort to hold prices up, b ut the ca p acity is still the re, sleeping fitfully, waiting to be u se d . The other factor is t he oil cru n ch . If we we re m ad e uneasy by t he Arab o il e m b ar go , the J apa nese were (st ill are) panic-stricken , They import 99 percent o f thei r ' o il needs, a nd th ey h ad to bargain d esp era tel y wi th the Arabs to ge t what t hey ha ve, now. Small wo nder, then, that w it h o ur vendor situa tion freeing up to th e p oint w h er e it 's al most reasonable to do business again , they wou ld seck to shift some of their productio n out of the co u n t ry as a hedge again st the future. For if it comes to another c runc h, we'll respond in this country b y raising the price of everything and la y in g off II ma ybe 2 0 percen t of o ur work fo rce, h u t we'll still b e fu nctio n in g (p lu s the sal e of st reet bikes o ug h t t o Ret an o t h e r h ype o ut of it ). If it happens to the m , they Tl h ave a bo u t 9 0 days to sh u t d own the ir e n tire indu strial co mplex an d turn everybody out in to th e rice p addies. It's tha t bad. I o nce co mp lained I h ad no sh o es until I m e t a m an who h ad n o feet . . . Let 's go one step fur ther with this o il/ene rgy thing. The German s an d the It alians h ave some native coal to fall back o n', bu t othe rwi se the Arabs h ave th em o ver the sa me barrel (75 p ercent of their imports ) as the J apanese. The British have their own North Se a oil, so they sit relativel y fat. Now c h e w o n all this for a moment, then tell me - in a world in wh ich OP EC can doub le an d red oubl e t he price of oil a t w ill ; in which the a u t o m o bile has hit its h igh watermark; in which millions of co n su m ers w orld wi de wi ll h ave to c h o o se between a moto rc ycl e , Shank's Ma re an d publi c tr an sit ; in wh ich Detroit, slo w ly flound ering off towards the tarpits, is re leasing t housands of sk ille d asse mbly wo rkers in to a lo o se economy ; a nd in wh ich th ree o f the most impo rt ant motorcycle -building nations in t he world standto go tits-up co m e the next Arab-Israeli war - w ho in hell is go in g to build all those mo torcycles? Vou guesse d it Daddy - even though we might be in the m iddle of the most Gawd-awful depression of all time, it's go in g to be us (spe lled U.S .) , because ever ybody else is go in g to be worse off. And, I might ad d , the few wh o ar c findin g work an d ge tting fat while everybody else is st arving, will be building motorcy cles. So get re ady. I submit tha t there is no reason for a m otorcycle e n th u sias t w ith a valid production work sk ill to co n ti n u e to work at so me dumb job h e co rd ially h ates for money to spend o n mo torcycles . What has been m issin g is a "skills pool" - an information file co n ta in in g the resumes of hundreds (h o pefu lly thousands ) of hard-core bi ke rs who a lso happen to be machinists, asse mb le rs, draftsmen . con tro lle rs. engineers, production mi ddle managers, line foremen, m ar ke t an alysts, in d u stri a l buyers, co rp o ra te lawyers, c o n tract specialists, press op erato rs, m at e ri al h andlers, warehousemen, lo ad ers , automation experts, flo o r grun ts, drivers, w ha tever. The very existe n ce of such a lil e would be a p o wer ful force fo r t he creation of an ent h us i ast owned/opera ted moto rcycle fa ctory , a la Bu ltaco , We've go t one last c h ance , while the myopic m o gu ls of Gr o sse Pointe (or wherever) a re still groping to find their way , an d wh ile Honda, Vamaha and Suzuki arc still sitting on a pin, trying to decide if Kawasa ki did the right thing. For in time, GM, Ford and Chrysler will get in the business, and not long after that you can expect th em to co zy up with their buddies at the D.O.T. and E PA (don't think they don't have them) to screw the m ar ke t around so nobody else ca n enter it. If that ever happens, it 's as m u ch our fau lt as an ybody's, because fo r th e next tw o years at least, m o torc y cl ing e nthusiasts can step in behind Kawasaki's lead and make an indepe nde nt American mo torcycl e in dustry snowball. So h o w about it ? Do we let the japanese an d Detroit divvy up the pic witho ut u s? . Having m o re imagina tio n than good sense, 1'1\ stick m y neck ou t an d offer to crea te a "skills po or' file, o pe n fo r ins pectio n and copy ing by any individ ual or corpo ration with a Gr ea t Americ an Mo t orcy cl e projec t an d a ne ed to tap enthusiast rid ers as a willing job m arket. So se nd me a res u me, and m ake it a good o ne . I won 't pro mise yo u a bloody thi ng, bu t if we a ll lu ck o ut, someday w he n you least expect it , you 'll get a phone call (as I did so m e two years ago from Sha ro n Clayton) from so meone who says, " I wan t to tal k to you abo u t a job." Could y o u dig it ? Lane Campbell • • • 51

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