
The strong rumors of Harley-Davidson offering $1.6 billion for Ducati have been trotted through most of today’s financial news outlets.
This is only weird if you remember Harley doing a decade long courtship with Erik Buell, then finally after a long engagement internalizing Buell into Harley and capitalizing on having Buell in the Harley-Davidson showroom by then shutting Buell down a few years later. And only if you remember Harley buying MV Agusta for $109 million and then two years later “selling” it back to (the late) Claudio Castiglioni for $4 euro–roughly $5 bucks.
Also, the Harley-Davidson VR 1000 Superbike program.