The California Highway Patrol (CHP) announced that it will no longer buy BMW motorcycles and is switching back to Harley-Davidson machines, dealernews reports. The decision to start once more using Harley-Davidson bikes dates back to 2013, but now it looks like all the bikes will be replaced.
Until the California Highway Patrol inked the deal with the H-D Oakland dealership last year, the last time when a deal was made was in 1989. The last of the ’89 Harleys have been retired in 1997, and were replaced with police-spec BMW R1200RT machinery.
Mike Genthner, the co-owner of the Oakland H-D dealership adds that he has already shipped 121 motorcycles, and is now preparing the last batch of 47 more. However, they will all be 2014 Electra Glide models, better equipped in terms of suspensions, electrical rewiring and useful things, such as a tank-mounted clipboard.
Two trained technicians are delivering the bikes at a rate of bikes per week, and the final price is $28,300 (€20,750) a pop, compared to the $24,239 (€17,770) stock models are sold for. The same dealership is also upgrading and selling authority motorcycles to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and police forces in the Bay Area cities including Fremont and Hayward.
According to other sources, the 2013 Electra Glides received a cam upgrade, with the stock one replaced by a H-D SE-225 to increase torque, horsepower and top speed. No info on why the California Highway Patrol decided to stop buying BMW bikes was offered, but a debate on Electra Glide versus R1200RT would be interesting, provided no “American cops should ride American bikes” and similar non-technical explanations are used. Or maybe it was only down to the lowest bidder…
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