Comments on: Harley-Davidson President And CEO James Ziemer To Retire In 2009

By: George

George — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:51:27 +0000

Way to go (Butch), James. Your dad would be proud of you. Enjoy the rest of your days. Come to Branson and relax.

By: Kenny Price

Kenny Price — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:33:53 +0000

It’s funny how the CEO retires after such poor performance in the market. It happens in most companies like its a forced retirement. Harley definatly needs new leadership anyway.

By: raycwheeler

raycwheeler — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:16:18 +0000

Best of luck,

Enjoy your retirement until a better job offer rears its ugly head .

Extremely hard to retire if you have lead an active life or are easily bored .

Whatever your choice might be , enjoy life .

Ray

By: harry

harry — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:59:03 +0000

This sounds like a routine thing to me; if I worked somewhere for 40 years, well, I’d want to retire too. Gotta figure he is in his late to mid-60′s. When I’m that age all I want to do is fish, ride my bikes, drink beer and eat at greasy spoons and BBQ joints. Maybe it’s a little naive to think this way but maybe the guy wants to call it a day and nothing more.

By: FUJI

FUJI — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:41:21 +0000

In some circles there is talk going around that Ziemer would make the perfect person for the post of car czar.

I find this very far sighted.

Not that he doesn’t understand business but one that he understands the car market is a little far fetched.

Lee Iacocca would be a far better choice with name recognition. Lee worked his way through the ranks of Ford and saved Chrysler with success and has a degree in engineering to his credit.

By: Nicker

Nicker — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:34:10 +0000

Ooops!

Sorry Mike, got the “only sold in Europe” confused with “Kit developed in Europe”……

But regarding the XR hoopla, wrong-heads, wrong pipes, wrong intake.

My point is, on the basis of their owning the original XR1000 already, they could have saved themselves that money by calling this thing something like an “XR12K Tracker.”
And (again IMHO) there was too much XR-hype for a scooter that had the Wrong Pipes, Wrong Heads, Wrong intake.

So, now they’ve gotta rationalize the Stortz-kit buyout business case:
-1- Does it do justice to it’s XR namesake?
-2- Doe the sales justify the total effort?

And -BTW- how are these units selling???

-nicker-

By: bobberking

bobberking — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:28:02 +0000

i want to be the one just for the pay check

alan

By: J

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:16:13 +0000

Smart move- best chance he has to someday get his options and warrants out from under water…… However, won’t exclude him from blame for the inevitable consolidation and/or restructuring looming in HD’s future…..

By: Mike Kiwi Tomas, Kiwi Indian MotorCycles

Mike Kiwi Tomas, Kiwi Indian MotorCycles — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:44:32 +0000

The XR1200 rights were purchased from Steve Stortz of Stortz Performance in Ventura Calif. Steve had developed this bike some years ago and I prefer to refer to Harley’s bike as a “Steve Stortz replica”.
The XR1200 is a nice bike indeed. Chris from Cycle Source magazine was riding one recently and he certainly looked like he was enjoying it.

By: chaplain Jim

chaplain Jim — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:58:47 +0000

there is a time and place for everything even retirement. I retired 3 years ago and got to even think its oooookkkkk/ha ha

By: Jeff Nicklus

Jeff Nicklus — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:46:09 +0000

I am sure The Motor Company stock prices have nothing to do with “his decision to retire”.

Over & Out,

Jeff

By: Nicker

Nicker — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:40:01 +0000

Well, if it was Jimmy’s decision to buy the XR1200 “rights” from some European, perhaps it was time for him to retire….???

-nicker-