A Question of Distinction

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A Question of Distinction

Question:
Are modern machines less distinctive between brands in terms of Appearance as compared to machines of the 70’s?

Over the past decade or two I’ve been noticing a trend in the auto industry that when one of the top or high end manufacturers comes out with a new body style, within a year or two there are any number of look-a-likes on the road from other car lines. Sometimes the similarity is such that if you can’t see the model or manufacturers name/logo it takes a moment or two to realize that it is not the original manufacturers product, just another copy. After I got back into riding again in 99 after a 12 year hiatus I started to see a similar trend in bikes. Which got me to wondering about how motorcycles have evolved and how my own perceptions influence my views on the changes I’ve seen over the ensuing years. First lets go over a little background and some personal observations/thoughts, keeping in mind they are very general observations as I don’t want to get into to much detail or get hung up in semantics.

When I bought my first new bikes back in the 70’s (a 1970 Suzuki Titan 500, then another new Titan in ’73 and finally a Z1A Kawasaki 900 in ‘74) there where basically two types of machines available, dirt bikes and street bikes and that was pretty much it, except for the enduro on/off machines. Back then there weren’t all the specialized categories like we have today, i.e. MX, cruiser, sport, sport touring, touring, etc. Generally speaking, it was basically a choice of brand, displacement and model and within each model about the only factory options were color. If you wanted to customize it you had to buy aftermarket products and either install them yourself or get the dealer to do it, or perhaps go to a “chop” shop. For the most part there really weren’t many, if any, “factory” options. Today, buying bikes has gotten to be a lot more like buying cars, there are many more factory options available, which is great for the consumer, since they can get the bike set up the way they want right from the get-go, all that’s left is get it out of the showroom and ride away. Another nice aspect of that is the fact that everything matches, and the overall effect is much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, not to mention that it solves many of the problems that plagued the early years of aftermarket customization.

The aspect of all this that has me wondering is that while there are a lot more options available as well as more styles of bikes today, are they, at least in some ways, losing a certain amount of individual personality or distinctiveness? To me this seems especially prevalent in the cruiser category and to a certain extent the sport and sport touring class. For instance, there have been a number of times when someone has mentioned to me seeing a Japanese cruiser and remarking that they thought at first it was a Harley. Now granted some have been non-riders, but even some other riders I’ve met on the road have said the same thing. In the sport bike and sport touring class that have all the bodywork, from a distance I often have to look harder to identify the brand/model than I did back in the early 70’s when bikes were more bare-boned, so to speak. Part of that could be that when the motor was more visible the shape of the motor gave me some clues whereas on most bikes in this class the motor is completely hidden from view. It just seems to me that back then when most bikes didn’t have all the body work the lines of the different bikes were more distinct so they were more easily recognized. The group of guys I rode with back in the 70’s and I used to play a little game where we would try to guess the brand and model of bikes by just the sound, and we were often pretty close if not dead on. Nowadays it seems that a lot of machines not only look similar they even sound similar, at least to me.

And one last observation, since customizing bikes back in the 70’s meant going mostly “aftermarket” it seems that customized machines tended to be more distinct than customized machines today as it comes off the showroom floor with mostly factory options. Now I realize that this difference may well be attributable to the fact that with the older machines still on the road today it’s due to the fact that the machine has most likely seen a number of different owners over the years and as each has applied their modifications guided by their own personal taste, the machines individuality is simply a natural outcome of this long term process. Certainly back in the 70’s for any given model and brand most bikes looked very similar right off the showroom floor, but it seems to me that the difference between brands was more distinct.

So to recap my question is this:
Is it just me and my lack of familiarity with modern machines that makes me feel modern bikes have lost a certain individually/distinction between brands compared to machines of thirty years ago, or is there in fact some legitimacy to this view? And if so, what other factors might be a work here that lend some credence to this idea that they have lost some of that personality from the earlier days? Understand this has nothing to do with quality, brand loyalty, etc, nor is it a question right or wrong, good or bad, and I’m not interested in limiting it to any particular brand, but rather I’m looking at a general view that includes bikes within the various categories as I listed previously. I’m also not referring to the handling or other qualities of the various machines, just the overall “personality” in terms of appearance.

I’m really curious if others share this view, plus I’d be curious to know how the different views points break down as far as the type of bike the person expressing the view prefers riding. In other words, if there are others who share this view, do you, like me, ride mostly older machines and vise versa for those that ride mostly newer machines and does that preference influence your view point? Besides being curious, if I get enough responses, I’m thinking it might make an interesting follow-up article for a latter edition of VriginiaWind. So lets hear from the masses. Send your comments to survey@roadrunes.com.

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