Harley's V-Rod offers glimpse of what Chevy faces with midengine Corvette

If Chevrolet product planners in Detroit want to know what they are facing in trying to lure younger buyers into the Corvette, all they need to do is look some 386 miles to the west to 3700 W. Juneau Ave. in Milwaukee.

That’s where Harley-Davidson lives. The famed maker of V-twin-powered motorcycles is as much a part of the fabric of American transportation culture as Chevrolet -- both companies are more than a century old, and both are searching for younger buyers.

Harley kick-started its youth effort 15 years ago with the V-Rod, its first motorcycle powered by a water-cooled, overhead-cam engine. To add to the V-Rod’s cool factor, Harley called in Porsche to help design the new engine. The stylish V-Rod, still in production and marketed as the Night Rod, was a complete break from Harley’s past, an effort to lure younger riders who were buying Honda, Triumph and Kawasaki sport bikes.

If you’ve been paying attention to the Detroit rumor mill this summer, you know Chevrolet is contemplating a move with the Corvette every bit as radical as Harley’s V-Rod.

Word on the street here has Chevrolet tearing up the next-generation Corvette and planting the engine behind the driver, making the eighth iteration of America’s sports car midengined for the first time. It could be in production by 2019. Putting the engine behind the driver has advantages that could see the Corvette’s weight go down, its handling performance go up, its 0-to-60 time drop and its appeal to tech-savvy buyers expand.

Such a move would be as radical a transformation for the Corvette -- which was born in 1953 with its engine in the front driving the rear wheels and has stayed that way ever since -- as Harley-Davidson building a motorcycle with a water-cooled, overhead-cam engine.

Harley’s rough ride

Demographic data for individual models in the motorcycle industry is hard to come by. Harley stopped reporting the average age of its customers nearly a decade ago. But all indications are that the V-Rod didn’t budge the needle downward much for H-D. In 1999, the average age of a Harley customer was 43. The V-Rod went on sale in 2001, but the average Harley rider kept getting grayer, 46 in 2004 and 48 in 2008.

But Harley eventually did start finding the younger buyers it was pursuing -- and not by riding away from its past. Harley repackaged the technology it is known for -- air-cooled, push-rod V-twin engines -- and put it in meaner-looking, sportier packages.

Maripat Blankenheim, Harley’s director of corporate communications, declined to provide demographic data about the V-Rod, but she said that in 2008, when the company rolled out the Dark Custom line of air-cooled bikes, sales to younger males began increasing. And today, Blankenheim said, no motorcycle manufacturer sells more bikes to 18- to 34-year-old males than Harley-Davidson. Sales have also increased among women and Hispanics.

There may be some lessons for Chevrolet here. In some ways, the customers for a Harley motorcycle and a Corvette are a lot alike. No one needs a two-seat sports car or a premium motorcycle for daily transportation; there are more practical alternatives. These vehicles are basically toys for people with a lot of discretionary income.

Three years ago, the average age of the Corvette buyer had crept up into the late 50s to early 60s. And Corvette customers are getting older faster than buyers of other luxury sports cars, says IHS Automotive analyst Stephanie Brinley.

“The introduction of the current vehicle has not really helped the situation,” said Brinley. “In 2012, about 18 percent of [Corvette] registrations were to owners in the 65- to 74-year-old age bracket, and nearly 25 percent were in that bracket in 2015.”

She notes the demographic data may not be exact because the registrations are tracked by household, not driver. It’s possible, she says, that some Corvettes are not registered to the primary driver.

I read several strings of comments on a Harley owners forum that asked V-Rod riders for their age and what bike(s) they traded in. Many who responded said they were in their late 40s to early 60s and came off another Harley bike.

Here’s my two cents on the future of the Corvette. If Chevrolet wants it to appeal to younger buyers, the car needs to be smaller and much lighter. It needs a lower starting price, an all-wheel-drive option and a really tight turning radius. Powerwise, it should offer an array of engines, including high-revving, turbo four- and six-cylinder engines while top models still offer a V-8. Perhaps a performance-increasing hybrid could also work.

Cadillac, with such cars as the ATS-V, has proved that it can out-German the Germans on performance. But the sales results so far haven’t justified the investment. If a midengine Corvette comes out in a few years and appeals only to Corvette buyers, it won’t do much to expand the nameplate’s appeal -- no matter how fast it can carve a curve.