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Harley-Davidson has announced that it will discontinue its Buell product line and focus solely on the Harley-Davidson brand.

As sports bike fans snap up the last few models in dealerships, customers have been given the reassurance that Harley-Davidson will continue to provide full after-sales support, supplying replacement parts and service through dealerships and providing warranty coverage for Buell motorcycles.

It's a somewhat sad ending for a brand born from a man whose passion and vision produced some of the most innovative sports bikes of all time.

Start at the begining

Buell's story began in 1983, when privateer road-racer Erik Buell designed and built his RW750 race bike, a 750cc, two-stroke, square-four, rotary valve-engined machine designed to compete in the former AMA Formula One road racing class.

The first prototype RW750 took to the track that same summer in the AMA National at Pocono Speedway. Buell continued extensive testing and development work on the bike throughout the year and made his mark during testing at Talladega, Alabama, where the bike was clocked at a top speed of 178mph (285km/h).

A production version was released in 1984 and just one RW750 was sold to the American Machinists Racing Team before the AMA announced that 1985 would be the last year of Formula One racing.

This destroyed the market for the RW750 but Buell shrugged it off and went back to work to create the first world-class sportbike designed and assembled in the United States.

RR1000

From this the RR1000 was born. Powered by a Harley-Davidson XR1000 engine, the rigid and lightweight chassis incorporated an engine mounting design that used the engine as a member of the frame and became a patented feature of many future Buell sport bikes. A total of 50 RR1000 models were produced under the name of Buell Motor Company in 1987 and 1988.

After the RR1000, Buell's motorcycles continued to evolve, using newer versions of Harley-Davidson-based engines as they emerged. In 1989, a two-seat version of the RR model, the RS1200, was rolled out for riders who wanted top performance and two-up comfort. The bikes were the first production motorcycles to use inverted front forks, stainless steel braided lines and a six-pot front brake caliper.

By 1991, Buell Motor Company not only designed its own bodywork, it also produced it in its own composites and has a paint shop. In early 1993, Harley-Davidson took a 49 percent stake in the fim and its name was changed to Buell Motorcycle Company. By 2003, the company was fully-owned by Harley-Davidson and Erik Buell remained as chief technical officer and guided product development.

Changing the industry

The years that followed saw a number of developments that changed the outlook for design and production in the motorcycle industry.

This included the use of lightweight aluminium frames and Buell’s three primary design principles: low unsprung weight, mass centralisation, and chassis rigidity.

In 2008 an all-new model, the Buell 1125R, was introduced and its launch was followed in 2009 with the introduction of the stripped-down 1125CR. This modern interpretation of a café racer offers sportbike performance to the streetfighter category but with the styling and the power of the Buell Helicon 1125 liquid-cooled V-Twin engine.

On October 15th 2009 Buell motorcycles announced that it would be permanently discontinuing production of any new Buell motorcycles. However a limited number of new Buell motorcycles remain available for sale through authorised dealerships.

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