So I stopped in that the BMW Motorrad dealer here in Ottawa to pick up some 10-60 and had a chat with one of the sales people. Very interesting. He said the Piaggio people were in this or last week trying to get them to pick up the line. They wouldn't do it, although I wish they had. They're a pretty committed dealership and would have at least given the brand a fighting chance.
Apparently the BMW TO dealership is bursting at the seams because they're selling cars like there is no tomorrow (probably thanks to our strong petro-dollar). So the (relatively new) owners want to boot the motorcycle operations into a new building, but fear the BMW motorcycle dealership won't be profitable on its own. So to augment BMW motorcycles sales they've picked the available Piaggio dealership for the Toronto area (because there was none at all). Apparently the new owners figure they're going to sell 50 Guzzis and 100 Aprilias a year (to put this into comparison, the sales person I was talking to said the Piaggio reps said they only sold 16 bikes in Canada last year, although I don't know if he meant all new Guzzis or just '09 model year because Canada seems to be awash with '07 and '08 Guzzis on showroom floors.) The staff thing they're smoking crack, and I'm tending to support that view as well. The natural push will be to push Beemers to everyone that walks in the door. Further, MG/Aprilia brand marketing is essentially non-existent. It's gonna take some $$$ to establish the brand in the local community.
I hope they do. It'll certainly be a shot in the arm for the brand. To do so, however, either they or Piaggio are going to have to invest heavily in advertising to get the brand in front of the bike-buying public. Like I said before, it's tough trying to run a motorcycle company when you sell 8,000 bikes a year and your competitors are selling 110k to 500k.
Cory
