Not long after Harley-Davidson purchased a 49 percent stake in Buell Motorcycles, the company introduced their more mass-produced bikes, the 1995-96 S2 Thunderbolt touring bike, and curiously afterward, the S1 Lightning sportbike in 1996-98. With total production of about 5,000 units, the S1 was a nice success for Buell as they tooled up for the…
Given a clean sheet of paper and nearly unlimited resources, it’s no surprise when major manufacturers come up with good motorcycles. In fact, when you consider those factors, it’s shocking how often they get it wrong… But Buell had neither advantage in building his motorcycles and still managed to come up with some very interesting…
The announcement earlier this month that EBR/Erik Buell Racing is discontinuing operations is pretty sad. EBR was probably the best “all-american-sportbike” effort we have seen in quite a while. While others such as Roehr, Fischer, Motoczysz came and went in a blink, EBR lasted over 6 years and were effectively a continuation of the concepts…
From the S2 Thunderbolt of 1994-95, the Buell S1 Lightning was a decrease in model number and price, but an improvement in many ways. Developed by Harley-Davidson engineer Erik Buell, the Buell bikes pioneered many innovative features but never denied their desire for the brute horsepower of the 1203cc Sportster engine. 1998 Buell S1 Lightning…
2009 Buell XB12 for sale on ebay Here is a Buell XB12 with only 3 miles on the odometer. Now I know some regular readers of RSBFS aren’t big fans of the Buell lineup, with the usual complaint being along the lines that they were just a disguised Harley Davidson and aren’t really that rare. …
I know a lot of RSBFS readers think that except for the new EBR bikes all Buells were kind of half-assed sportbikes that didn’t measure up to the competition. What is interesting to me is that if you say the name “John Britton” to these same people they will claim that the Britten V-1000 was…
Update 4.22.2015: This bike is heading to a new home. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Update 10.6.2014: Now on eBay, links added. -dc Certainly not the handsomest machine, Buell’s XBRR was a factory racebike based on their XB12 streetbike that featured Buell’s customary obsession with mass-centralization and weight-reduction. Both very good ideas, considering the…
Join us in the comments for a discussion on what criteria should be considered for bikes to appear on RSBFS. Thanks for the post Marty! -dc Let me say up front that I struggled a bit with submitting this bike, given the fact that its big, slow, is powered by a 1200cc air cooled engine…