I think it could have been done but likely wouldn't succeed. Typically we don't measure success in America by products it is measured in sizable profit margins how much it makes the shareholders. Even within the things that do have a culture for -- like cars -- we walk away from it if the profit margins and growth aren't there.
On top of that we have tremendous resources what is the heartbeat of production for less resource blessed places we can just simply walk away from. The motorcycle is the epitome of this, we never needed it for transportation we had the means, energy, and culture to skip right by that everyone has a car was the goal. If you look at Europe, Asia, South America, or Africa it is not like that.
I don't mean this in a bad way, it is why we are constantly innovating and our economy is always growing and it is how we are somewhat different from other modern economies that often plateau and are less innovative. Being first, getting the innovation, winning the high margin initial market that is what we are good at. Efficiency and capitalism work well in the US and dovetail, our productive culture is largely about getting more and more from less and less.
Of course there are always exceptions, but I think in the case of motorcycles size of the market, profit margin, and culture all conspire against an American badge.
Well your market is plenty big enough. Nearly all brands sell their bikes over there as well so there is demand.
You have plenty of resources and pretty cheap labour as well.
I agree that the ''ever more and higher'' and the ''right now'' is probably part of what makes it so hard so build good products on the size of bikes or cars. Especially when starting up it must be really hard because the lack of patience the corperate world seems to have.
But it's probably also on ''specsheet driven'' (American) over ''feeling driven''(European).
What we see in Europe is that American Cars/Bikes land bad here. Fit and finish is often well below what we consider to be the standard. On paper the specs (bragging rights) are always there, but the ''feel'' is actually a very important part here. Combine that with our streets being so much narrower and fuel so much more expensive that even when our gouvernments would subsidise American build cars they couldn't sell them in numbers here.
For example, my nephew is one of the only people i have ever seen that owns a Ford F150 (most sold car in the US?). He can't even park the thing in most town streets. At the supermarket he has to park with the freight trucks.
Tesla was very succesfull here for a while since the model looked quite good and people actually wanted EV's. However as soon as comparable cars from competitors started to show up sales dropped (even harder since the MAGA thing, but the trend was allready there). More expensive cars actually sell better because the Tesla's just feel cheap and people don't like that here when spending significant money.
Same goes for HD's bikes. Most of them are huge and only really work well in straight lines. And that is OK if the roads are more or less straight, but they aren't out here.
The Zero's are also a good example. I owned one and it was build to a pricepoint that would many Chinese bikes would feeled ashamed of themselves. All while charging premium. It also was great going straight, but when it came to cornering it was just ''off''.
All of the above doesn't even need to be 100% true. But this is how a lott of Europeans think of American products. And perception can just be enough to halt sales before people have even seen it in the flesh.
I think the American way of things is most suited for IT and other very fast moving markets. And that is where Europe struggles.
