Happy Birthday Victory Motorcycles | Enter “Gunny”

Victory Motorcycles Brings Some Badass To Its Line!

We are in our final chapter of our Victory Motorcycles 15th Anniversary historical review and it certainly has been quite a ride. Who dares enter the heavyweight cruiser market and go toe to toe with an American icon like Harley Davidson? Many have tried and failed.

Polaris Industries is different, when you already have the foundation for success (lots of capital, great team of engineers, in home manufacturing, and a lean business model) like Polaris has with launching new products, it’s only a matter of time before the stubborn folks at Polaris start to pick away at market share. Yes, they still have a long way to go before they put a dent in the Harley business but going from last to second in share for the cruiser market in the U.S. is nothing to sneeze at.

Big inch cruiser riders are not your typical motorcyclist, most could care less about how fast the bike goes or how far over you can lean it in a turn. It’s about attitude and it takes a while for a brand to develop that. Think of it like raising a baby, early on it just spits up on itself and you can’t understand what it’s saying but after a few years it starts to develop a personality and you start to interact with it.

Take the original Victory V92C, great bike but no-one knew what it was trying to be, it had classic looks but the marketing department was touting its performance, it was a baby trying to scratch out a name for itself in an already proud, stubborn, closed-minded market. (you know who you are)

Enter the Victory High-Ball, Hard-Ball, Judge and a whole new attitude for Victory Motorcycles. The folks at the home office recognized the fact that they needed to bring more “Edge” to the brand so they partnered with industry icons like Roland Sands and the youngest Ness, Zach Ness. This fresh young blood is largely responsible for bringing the latest crop of badass Victory Motorcycles to the forefront of the model line-up.

The Victory High-Ball is a low slung urban cruiser with the tallest ape-hangers in production. It has a dark flat paint scheme and blacked out trim. You have to be a badass to ride this bike because of its looks and the fact, that, in cruiser circles, your still considered to be the challenger. It takes a ton of nads to step out of the incumbent clan and go a different direction and quite frankly, it’s too much pressure for most!

The Victory Hard-Ball has much of the same attitude as the High-Ball but built around the Victory Cross Road/Country platform. It has a flat paint scheme, blacked out trim and a tall set of ape-hangers to polish off its statement. All are powered by the rock solid 106 ci Freedom V-Twin.

As if the bikes weren’t enough, Victory still needed to convince potential buyers to give them a shot? Enter “Gunny” General R. Lee Ermey. You may remember him best from the 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket, where he played a tough as nails Drill Sergent in the Marine Corps. Gunny has taken the Victory Marketing campaign into the trenches, where he is most comfortable. Check out these two videos, the first from the movie and the next from the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota.

As you can see, Gunny hasn’t changed much and it’s a good thing. If anyone has the stones to dig into the trenches of Sturgis it’s Gunny. So I ask you, do you have the stones to come test ride a Victory Motorcycle? We guarantee if you buy one you’ll like it or we’ll give you your money back! Who else does that?

SVP

Happy Birthday Victory Motorcycles Part-2

Thanks for reading the second part over our Victory Motorcycles 15th Anniversary celebration.

When we left you last the Victory Vegas had arrived on the scene, Arlen and Cory Ness joined Victory Motorcycles design team and became ambassadors of the brand. The year is 2004 and news from the home office is that their will be another big surprise coming out of Spirit lake this year. During the dealer meeting Polaris Industries (parent company to Victory Motorcycles) releases the 2004 Victory Kingpin.

When we first saw the bike, we didn’t really have any words, it was long low and like nothing we had ever seen. What was the buying public going to think when they finally got a look at this new polarizing, 2-wheeled piece of rolling art? Rolling art is not different from hanging art, in that, each person looks at it with different eyes. Some loved it instantly and some couldn’t get their head around those bold valance fenders. Arlen Ness wanted the rear fender out another 3-4″ but key people on Victory’s design team said that it would be too much.

Whatever you thought of the new Victory Kingpin, there was no denying what is was when you saw one coming down the road. I remember people commenting what a beautiful motorcycle it was when they saw it for the first time, people who have never ridden a bike would turn their heads and stare! The lines of the machine were so shapely and flowing, like a beautiful woman posing for a portrait. You have to remember Victory’s target audience to understand why the Kingpin’s sales suffered. The Harley crowd wasn’t amused at all.

The 2004 Victory Kingpin was nothing at all if it didn’t push Peoples buttons, you either loved it or hated it. One thing was certain, if you rode the bike, you wanted it. It had great power excellent handling and head turning looks. There were several innovations the motorcycle delivered not seen in the American made, heavy weight, cruiser market. It had an inverted fork, low profile radial tires, increased ground/peg clearance, all to help the machine straighten out a corner on par with some more sporting rides available to the industry.

Victory would go on to produce several other models with the sculpted tank look, variations of the Vegas and Kingpin. The 2005 Victory Hammer and the 2006 Victory Jackpot were fat tire versions of the Vegas. The Hammer with a shorter wider front tire and twin disc brakes was the performance cruiser and the Jackpot with its taller and narrower 21″ wheel was a play on the custom chopper look. Both had the widest rear tire available at the time, a 250mm wide chunk of rubber that dominated the rear of the bike. That’s it for now, see you next week!

Victory Motorcycles Is Fifteen!

Happy Birthday Victory Motorcycles | Skagit Valley Polaris Washington Dealer.

Skagit Valley Polaris is proud to say that “We have been a Victory dealer since day one.” It hasn’t been easy, inexpensive or even, fun (at times) trying to help build the next iconic brand of American motorcycles but one thing is certain, Victory Motorcycles are the highest quality, best performing American made motorcycle on the planet, period!

In the beginning (1999) the first Victory Motorcycle (the V92C) rolled of the assembly line in Spirit Lake Iowa. It was a weekend and all of the employees had already worked overtime getting ready to fire up full production of the new American motorcycle. This weekend was special though and the workers all agreed, they would work around the clock so their baby would not miss this special day, fifteen years ago, this July 4th, Victory Motorcycles was born.

Polaris Industries had a new baby that was about to go head to head with an American legend, Harley Davidson…WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? I’ll tell you, America is and has always been about doing things better. The promise of Victory “The New American Motorcycle” is that, it was built from the ground up, to be better than any American motorcycle had ever been, in terms of; Power, Handling, Ride, Comfort and Quality.

The first Victory Motorcycle did accomplish some of these things but it sure was not without its faults that year. Some of the bikes had been assembled with soft production gears in the transmission that came apart and took the others with it and in some instances, took the crankcase too! But it was a cool bike with newer technology; 92 cubic inches, overhead cam, oil cooled head, hydraulic lifters, fuel injection, Brembo brakes and a stiffer chassis to hug the road like a sport cruiser.

In 2002 Victory would begin to make great strides toward the quality and performance they touted from the beginning, by introducing the new Freedom V-Twin engine. The displacement was still the same at 1510 cc but the overall power output was much higher and it also ran cooler due to a new cylinder design. This was a great motorcycle and it would drive right around ANY other American made motorcycle, right off the showroom floor.

The HD crowd didn’t care! They were happy farting around on old technology, turning their nose up at the threat of someone trying to steal their thunder, so to speak. One thing the HD crowd had respect for is that Victory wasn’t trying to be a “me too” motorcycle. In 2003 with the birth of the Victory Vegas, customers knew right away, that, this was NOT their Grandpa’s motorcycle.

With the help of Arlen and Corey Ness, the Victory Vegas was born and it made a huge splash in the world of American motorcycles. The new Victory Vegas had the curves of a hot chick but could boogie down the road like the Road Runner with Wiley Coyote far behind wheezing like the inferior opponent he was.

Tune in next week for the continuation of our Victory Motorcycles Happy Birthday celebration post. Thanks for reading!

SVP

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