If you’ll pardon the bad pun, it sometimes seems like Harley-Davidson has been something of a wild ride in the last few years, vacillating between its desires to stay true to the big, burly motorcycles that made it a legend and branch out into new types of bikes in order to build a more robust, diverse lineup. In recent years, the latter side of the company’s personality has seemed to have a stronger grip on the handlebars: the company rolled out its first-ever electric motorcycle, the groundbreaking LiveWire, last year; it has a new streetfighter and its first-ever ADV on the way; it even seems to even be working on top-secret cafe racer and flat tracker bikes.
It seems like some of those ambitions plans may not be coming to fruition, though — at least, not as originally planned. Because it seems Harley’s new streetfighter may not be coming anytime soon.
As Motorcycle.com recently noticed, Harley-Davidson has scrubbed all mention of the Bronx from the company’s Future Vehicles page. The bike is also missing from the Future Vehicles section of the H-D media site, although you can still find the original press release regarding it by searching — perhaps by virtue of the fact that it shared a debut with the Pan America ADV. The company’s recent strategy briefings have also been short of details on the Bronx, according to Motorcycle.com, furthering the theory that the new streetfighter has been put on ice.
When Motorcycle.com pressed Harley-Davidson for more details, the company’s reply certainly wasn’t confidence-inspiring. “Harley-Davidson’s immediate new product focus in 2021 will be on the launch of Pan America, our first Adventure Touring motorcycle,” the brand said. “In order to ensure an outstanding launch for Pan America, we will not be launching the Bronx streetfighter motorcycle next year.”
The streetfighter and ADV were both originally supposed to hit the streets in late 2020, but like many automotive manufacturers, Harley-Davidson’s product plans seem to have been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and the associated economic impacts.
If the Bronx has truly been canned, not just delayed, it’d be a shame, because the Bronx was (or is — we’re still not sure which tense to use here) one of the motorcycles we were most excited to see hit the streets. Like the new Pan America, it packed H-D’s new liquid-cooled Revolution Max engine; the Bronx’s version had a displacement of 975cc, enabling it to produce more than 110 horsepower and more than 70 lb-ft of torque.