Harley-Davidson is presently known for selling highly expensive motorcycles bought by people who want to pretend that they’re in a biker gang. It’s an image that the company’s new CEO, Artie Starrs, desperately wants to fix as he leads the Motor Company into the future. A big part of that fix will be two entry-level models. Harley-Davidson is bringing the air-cooled Sportster back from the dead. But more than that, Harley-Davidson is also reaching into its bag of dead models to revive the forgotten Sprint. When the new Sprint hits the road in 2027, Harley says it’ll be an attainable bike for likely well under $10,000.
Harley-Davidson has had to weather some rough storms over the past several years. According to Harley-Davidson’s First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Presentation, 2025 was a bit of a breaking point for the brand. Harley says its retail volumes have fallen 40 percent since 2019, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. Margins fell 18 percent in that span of time. And dealers? Their profitability fell by 80 percent. Back in February, the Motor Company reported a $279 million quarterly loss with motorcycle sales down 26 percent. 2024 was another rough year for Harley, with revenue down 13 percent and operating income down by 58 percent.
Harley-Davidson has seen some management shakeups during that span from 2019 to now. Matthew Levatich, the architect of the ambitious ‘More Roads To Harley-Davidson‘ initiative, resigned as CEO in 2020. His replacement, Jochen Zeitz, neutered More Roads, announced ‘Rewire’, then ‘Hardwire,’ and decided to turn the Motor Company into a luxury lifestyle brand. That failed, too, and Zeitz is gone. Now, as of late 2025, Artie Starrs is in the CEO hot seat of the Bar and Shield. Starrs, who isn’t known as a motorcycle guy but for his leadership at Topgolf, has his own big ideas to fix Harley-Davidson.
The ‘Back To The Bricks’ strategy seeks to reverse many of the changes Zeitz made. Under Starrs, Harley-Davidson has already announced price cuts to several motorcycle models. But making existing models cheaper isn’t good enough. Starrs wants to bring more riders to Harley, and not just ones with more money than they know what to do with. To facilitate that, Harley is going to bring back the air-cooled Sportster 883, a bike that hasn’t been made since 2022. But the bigger news is the rebirth of the Sprint, a name that hasn’t been used in 52 years. This new bike is supposed to be the cheapest motorcycle Harley-Davidson has sold in years.
Harley Wants To Revitalize Itself Again
Harley’s ‘Back To The Bricks’ presentation admits that, in recent years, the company screwed up. According to the presentation, Harley of the recent past prioritized its most expensive touring cruisers and electric motorcycles over bikes that are rider-centric. Indeed, Zeitz’s plan called for fewer motorcycles to be sold, but at higher prices. He really wanted you to spend more than $50,000 on that pretty CVO and for Harley to be an exclusive luxury lifestyle brand. Harley doubled down on catering mostly to its traditional buyers while ignoring other markets, continuing to leave cash on the table to its competition.
Back To The Bricks calls for Harley-Davidson to stop trying to be an exhausting lifestyle brand that slings more T-shirts than motorcycles and instead celebrate motorcycle culture and get back to making bikes for motorcycle riders.
To get to that place, Harley says it first needs to make some internal changes, reduce dealership inventory, sell the bikes it currently has in its lineup, and revamp its marketing platform. That’s all happening right now, apparently. Then, next year, Harley wants to put cheaper entry-level motorcycles on the road, introduce better parts and accessories, and run targeted offers.
The Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 Is Coming Back
The two new motorcycles leading the charge have been in development for a while. As I reported last year, Harley-Davidson began a new entry-level motorcycle project in 2021, roughly around the time when the Street 750 was discontinued and before the last old Sportster was built. This project operated in secret until 2025, when Harley announced that one of the bikes would be called the Sprint and would be priced “below $6,000.” Back then, Harley only said that the Sprint was being developed alongside an unnamed cruiser.
Now, we know the cruiser will be the rebirth of the old Sportster 883. Starrs has even confirmed that the new motorcycle will have an 883cc air-cooled V-twin engine just like the old Sportster.
No further hard details have been given about the engine, but if the teaser image is anything to go by, this engine will look very similar to the old Evolution. This engine appears to be a 45-degree pushrod V-twin, which are attributes that Harley’s fancy Revolution Max doesn’t have. This engine even appears to have the same circular airbox that the Iron 883 used to have.
Harley-Davidson said that the reason it had to kill the old Sportster in 2022 was that the Evo couldn’t meet modern European emissions requirements. So, if this is just the old platform brought back from the dead, presumably, the emissions issue has been cured. Or, the new Sportster could just use a Revolution Max, and the teaser image doesn’t actually represent what the production version will look like.
At the very least, the teaser image suggests the new Sportster 883 will look awfully close to the old Iron 883. I suppose we’ll have to see.
Honestly, the Sportster part of the news is fun and a little weird, but I don’t think it’s the biggest deal here. The new Sportster will come in at $10,000. While it’s good to have another lower-priced Harley, the Nightster is already priced at $9,999, so a $10,000 Sportster isn’t Earth-shattering.
Harley’s Even Cheaper Model
The curveball is still the Sprint. We’ve known about this bike since last year, but now we finally get a teaser image and a little more information.
In 2025, Harley-Davidson said the new entry-level Sprint will launch in 2026 for “below $6,000.” Now, Harley simply says the new bike, which will have an oil-cooled engine, will come in at “under $10,000.” Confusing things elsewhere in Harley’s presentation is a chart that shows where the Sprint will land, and the projection shows it coming in at over $6,000, but well less than $10,000. So, who knows?
Most motorcycle publications believe the new Sprint will be based on a Harley-Davidson-Hero middleweight from India. If so, the constantly changing tariff situation could easily explain why Harley no longer thinks it can hit its original price target.
If we assume the teaser image is representative of what the Sprint will look like, the engine outlined in the image is not a V-twin. Instead, it looks similar to the thumper housed in the Harley-Davidson X440.
Unavailable to American Harley buyers, the X440 was designed by India’s Hero MotoCorp with Harley-Davidson giving its blessing, and it’s been on sale since 2023 in India.
It sports a 440cc air-and-oil-cooled single-cylinder engine with 27 HP and 28 lb-ft of torque on tap. Like the baby Harleys of old, an X440 won’t lead its segment in power, but it can be an affordable way into the Bar and Shield. At the very least, it’s more power than you’d get out of a Royal Enfield 350.
The Sprint’s Heritage
If the Sprint is indeed based on an international model, it would be a fitting name. The last time Harley slapped the Sprint name on a bike, it was on an affordable motorcycle it imported from Italy. Here’s what I wrote last year about the old Sprint:
Back in the 1950s, Harley-Davidson found itself battling the increasing popularity of imported motorcycles in America. To help shore up its position against the flood of imports, Harley-Davidson purchased 50 percent of Italy’s Aermacchi in 1960. Aermacchi-Harley-Davidson was born and soon enough, Harley began importing Italian Aermacchi motorcycles into America with Harley-Davidson badging on them.
In 1961, Harley imported the Aermacchi 250, renaming it the 250 Sprint. This bike, which was really only a Harley in name only, sported a 246cc single making 18 HP. In 1969, Aermacchi bumped the engine up to 344cc, giving birth to the SS 350 Sprint, which made around 25 HP.
[…]
The Sprint was discontinued in 1974, and Harley’s Aermacchi experiment ended in 1978 when the brand was sold to the Castiglioni brothers of Cagiva fame. The Aermacchi Harleys used to be deeply unpopular, leading to the Aermacchis tending to be some of the cheapest Harley-branded bikes that you can find for sale in your local classifieds. However, these old bikes seem to be gaining a bit of a fandom nowadays. Maybe that’s why Harley isn’t afraid to use the name again for the new bike.
If you want to read more about Harley’s weird AMF era from my reporting, click here and here.
Zeitz said this about the new Sprint last year:
“Inspired by our heritage and the spirit of the iconic Harley Davidson Sprint motorcycle, this new bike embodies boldness, irreverence and fun, capturing the rebellious energy that defines the Harley-Davidson experience.”
While we don’t know what platform the new Sprint will ride on, it’s clear that Harley is going for more of a cruiser look. This is notable because the old Sprint was a standard-style motorcycle, and so is the X440. If the Sprint is based on the X440, it’s unlikely to be a direct import of the Indian bike. Instead, it could use the X440’s heart, but with an American design. That would also explain why these new entry-level bikes have been in development for years.
Harley Wants To Sell More Used Bikes, Too
Something else that’s fascinating is what Harley wants to do with its lineup. Harley’s roadmap calls for 20 new models over the next three years, which will be based on the existing Revolution Max, Softail, Touring, and Trike platforms. Weirdly, the Sprint and Sportster 883 show up under the Softail column. Something that gets my attention is that Harley thinks it needs another Revolution Max model around the $10,000 mark. It would be so cool if the Café Racer that I wrote about recently lands in that spot.
Harley-Davidson has an ambitious plan for the new Sporty and the new Sprint. In Harley’s eyes, these will be the bikes that get you into the company’s ecosystem. Then, one day, you’ll upgrade to a bigger and more expensive Harley. The Motor Company recognizes that some of the biggest competition for new motorcycles is used motorcycles. It’s not hard to find a nearly new motorcycle with low miles on the used market. For some people, there’s no point in buying new. So, Harley-Davidson wants to cater to used buyers by strengthening its used inventory. Ideally, Harley thinks, these Sprints and Sportsters will have good resale values and can be sold by dealers again as used bikes, padding profits.
This plan isn’t really new at all. Harley’s played this entry-level bike dance several times over the decades. Remember the Buell Blast? That was supposed to be the ultimate beginner motorcycle that you bought when you were young and then later traded in for a big Harley cruiser. The old Sprint was an entry-level ploy, as was the Street series (below) and, at times, the Sportster. So, Harley is not blazing any new trails or finding new roads.
That being said, I’m still happy to see Harley try an entry-level machine again. There are a lot of young people who want to ride, but don’t have Harley-Davidson money. So they go to their local Royal Enfield or Honda dealer instead. Smaller motorcycles are decent sellers right now, but Harley just doesn’t play in that market in America.
I cannot wait to see what happens next here. I missed out on being able to ride the old Sprint when it was new, and I’ve been bummed that Harley’s kept its strange X350RA Chinese bike confined to its rider training program. I want to ride the X440!
But I also like Harley’s new direction of opening itself up to a greater variety of potential riders again. Back To The Bricks might not be as ambitious as More Roads, but it seems like a move down a good path. But there’s a lot that has to land just right, from the price of the Sprint to how Harley markets itself going forward. I know it’s easy to hate on Harley, but I don’t roll like that. I genuinely hope it works out this time around!
Top graphic images: Harley-Davidson
The Bollock Brothers – Harley David (Son of a Bitch)
So, Big Picture question: When all the Boomers’ Harleys come onto the market in a flood, will it be a race to the bottom, price wise? Assuming yes, what will that do to H-D new bike sales?
And maybe more to the point: is this potential competition the real reason HD needs to diversify their product line?
My first thought upon seeing the headline was “Oooh, they are bringing back AMF!” deride this thought as you will, but we all know that the motor company is not known for its great marketing decisions.
Hah, as soon as I read the headline I thought “This name HAS to come from the AMF era”
Entry level Harley’s will never be big success’ in the US market unless they can create a culture shift in their own riders to stop making fun of owners of the entry level bikes. I’ve never been a cruiser rider but if you ride in the US you will be around them sometimes and on many occasions I saw guys with the big bikes making fun of Street owners, even though they were either new riders or that was all they could afford. Unfortunately if you’ve marketed using toxic culture for decades it’s hard to change that.
This is the way. Bring the Sportster back baby!
That Sprint is Hardly a big bike.
10 years back I had enough burnable cash to buy a new bike, as long as it was under 10K. Wanted a cruiser. Rode a new 883 Sportster first – fun but antiquated and no way I could ride it for more than a few hours without major pain. Also rode the liquid cooled 750, which was OK but bizarrely small, plus the dealer had zero interest in selling me one. Went to the Triumph dealer next, rode the America, and bought it on the spot. Subsequently rode it all over the country, loaded down with gear and had zero issues.
Triumph has been eating HD’s lunch for decades and still is. I have no idea why anyone would buy an HD when Triumph exists, outside of pure ego or some lifestyle bs. Buy a bike that’s gonna get you there!
Im not biker gang type, but the brand image isn’t the issue for me. The brand’s quality, at least perceived quality, as well as objectively poor performance keeps me from even looking.
I admit there are times when I suspect that my license plate frame isn’t fooling all that many people:
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/AMMicro_RR-scaled.jpg
Bringing back the air-cooled Sportsta? I Harley knew ya.
there are some flaws with starr’s entry-level-model strategy.
dealers have actively not supported (sabotaged?) every previous entry-level product, i see no reason to expect a different result this time around.
the idea of importing an entry-level product (for a brand like hd that leans so heavily into it’s usa heritage) dooms it from inception.
finally, hd makes cuiser/touring bikes, and nothing else. their competition makes cruisers, touring bikes, sport tourers, adventure bikes, sport bikes, naked bikes, enduros, motocross, trials, etc., all at different price points (and with different engines!!)- a product matrix with entry-level and progression options for new and returning customers.
if i were starrs, i’d lean heavily into leasing of the big bikes to milk the cash cow as long as possible ( and open up cpo revenue to dealers), while developing one or two complementary verticals (e.g.. sport bike category composed of king of the baggers, new v4 “hd panigale” & a small <;500cc sport bikes)….
HD does make the Pan America adventure/sport touring bike, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on the road.
yes, and not selling very many.
i agree it’s a different vertical, but it’s another pinnacle product without any complementary offerings at lower grades.
Aaahh… yep Buell Blast vibes for sure. I helped a friend buy one back in the day…. Then sell it. I borrowed it many times. They all had insanely loud aftermarket exhausts because the OEM header would crack off at the head flange from vibration, and the muffler was like 50lbs. Cheapest plastic, bizarre styling… I sort of love them.
This is good news. with the economy, wage stagnation ect, people have less $$ for hobbies so they need to focus on cheaper bikes for growth. if we are talking wish list for harley i would love a Pan america style bike but with a smaller engine so it is less heavy and more nimble. Maybe something like that x440/scout but off road focused / scrambler style.
The idea of Harley getting more involved in the used market gives me a thought: they should have a program to upcycle trade-ins into one-off customized units. Give them a basic mechanical once-over, throw a few pages of the parts catalogue at them, spray them with a crazy paint job and sell them for a premium. Sort of like what Gibson does with guitars that fail QC, they get sent to the mod shop and get turned into wild, unique creations instead of getting tossed in the wood chipper.
i like this throught process. dealers can take the engines out of used bikes, ship them to a facility that can redo gaskets, rehone cyclinders , resurface pistons ect. It may not be THAT much cheaper than a new bike but it could create some demand “why buy a bike from some stranger for $4,000 when for $6,500 i can get the same bike from a harley dealer thats been looked over and refreshed. Also the stranger might sell their bike the HD dealer for 2800-3100 and not have to deal with the hassle of private selling the bike the dealer can pay a little more money for used bikes since they will make more profit off the “recrafted” used bike.
Even if you don’t go full custom, a factory refurbished Harley program could work well. If nothing else, they should expand and do a better job promoting their certified used program (I am only tangentially aware such a program exists, and I am at my local H-D dealer a few times a year). Leaning further into the used market seems like a natural follow up after they launched HD Marketplace a few years ago.
I think Harley is barking up the wrong tree with cheap, small bikes. It hasn’t worked yet so I’m not sure why attempt number four or whatever we are on is going to be any different.
“I genuinely hope it works out this time around!”
My gut tells me they’ll do this for a few years… but when the moment arrives where things get SLIGHTLY tough, they’ll shitcan this idea just like they did with Buell.
H-D needs to shed the “lifestyle brand” image if they want to survive. I remember a few years ago, my old boss complaining about the cost of the new boots she bought at the Harley dealer, and about the total after she threw in some T-shirts and other stuff. I walked away thinking, “it costs a lot of money to make sure everybody knows you have a Harley.”
Harley would be well served to find something to sell that isn’t a bike.
I’m conflicted. I think Harley needs to somehow sell a base Sportster 883 under $9,000. This is a big ask because, if nothing else, the cheapest 2006 Sportster 883 retailed for around $10,800 in 2026 dollars. The days of $7,000 full-size motorcycles are over. Everyone sees cheap bikes like the Grom and forgets those have substantial limitations a 750+ cc bike won’t have. And even those cost $5000+ out the door.
The Sprint looks like a cool bike, though. Of course, I thought the Street 500 and 750 were good entry level options and those weren’t exactly hits. I still think “right sizing” the company and focusing on accessory/second hand bike sales is a better long term strategy than haphazardly throwing darts at the wall and hoping one of them somehow hits a bullseye.
Harley-Davidson is presently known for selling highly expensive motorcycles bought by people who want to pretend that they’re in a biker gang.
This is a bit of an exaggeration but not entirely wrong – I have no problem admitting I like cosplaying a tough biker a few hours a week and I know I am far from the only one. I don’t see why this is a problem. Most motorcycle manufacturers (and a lot of car companies) are selling an image along with their product. On some level, Harley has proven that selling an image works, or else they wouldn’t still be around after 100+ years. Everyone assumes Harley selling the biker image is hurting bike sales – I suspect selling that image is part of why they survived the AMF/Harley-Ableson era at all.
the harly nightster is 10 grand. bigger engine 90 horsepower about the same sized bike. what is the apeal of a $9000 sportster 883 for only a $1000 discount? unless the nightster gets a huge price hike the sporster would been to be like $8,000.
That is a fair question. By “under $9,000” I was thinking closer to $8,000 or $8500, even if that may not be realistic.
It is worth noting the MSRP of the base Nightster in grey (other colors all come with an upcharge) is $9,999. Clearly Harley thinks customers want a 4 figure bike, or else they wouldn’t have gone through the effort to build a grey nightster they can advertise for that price. I think it is important for H-D to have a new bike you can actually ride out of the showroom for less than $10,000 including taxes, fees, and whatever.
Plus, it is easy to play the “for $1,000/$2,000/$3,000 more” game, but a $9000 bike is still 10% cheaper than a $10,000 bike. That isn’t trivial for buyers who look at more than the monthly payment. Harley has a lot of new models, so it seems like they could upsell nicer bikes to those who want and can afford them.
I think a stripped 883 is the cheapest bike most buyers will accept as a “real Harley” based on past attempts that flopped (Buell, Street 500/750, etc.). So while the Sprint may technically be a Harley-Davidson for my target price, I don’t think it matters. Buyers have shown little interest in some very interesting non-traditional Harleys (Pan America, all Livewire models, the V-Rod, etc.) – I wouldn’t expect buyers to have any interest in a non-traditional Harley that is clearly built for the sole purpose of selling cheap.
also everyone is financing these days. that’s how the prices have ballooned out of control. I’m more of a Bike-Curious person myself. i could see myself having 2 wheels maybe some day but right now that is a LOT of money for a toy and with the amount of 95+degree days outside combined with all the gulf coast rain i wouldn’t even WANT to ride a bike like 6 months out of the year…. My buddy rides and is in this little circle of riding buddy friends and its all “i got this bike for $200 a month or this bike for $370 a month.”
I do agree with your premise of $1,000 is NOT an insignificant amount of money .. but when you are financing it is a lot easier to talk someone into spending “just” 30 dollars more a month to get the ‘better’ bike. That was the mindset I was thinking about on my original comment. The most expensive CAR i ever bought was like $17,000 i couldn’t imagine spending 10 grand on a toy. That is like this whole other level of lifestyle to me.
Yeah, the afternoon rains here make riding annoying in the summer. This is the time of year people up north start to think about taking their bikes out, but here in Florida I am getting to the time of year where I ride a lot less.
It is true about the financing thing, although there are a lot of potential Harley buyers with borderline credit that struggle to get approved (when I bought my last bike, I remember seeing another customer trying to get approved with a 500 credit score and no job…). I think there might be a surprising number of buyers where an extra $1,000 is what keeps them from being approved, even if it only works out to $30/month (of course, whether someone struggling with their finances should be getting a motorcycle loan at all is, at best, debatable – they are toys and no one actually needs one).
Just a think: stop trying to “position” yourself as something arbitrarily and just make good bikes. No pretense or fashion, just build ’em good. Or if you can’t build ’em good, then build ’em affordable.
I know that’s a big ask. So far only Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW, Bajaj, Vespa, Kawasaki, Triumph, CF Moto and a few others have been able to make it happen. But hey, Harley – you do you. I’m sure you’re going to get it right this time.
“Make GOOD bikes? Hmmm… we will have to think about that RADICAL idea and get back to you. We’re not sure if our customers want good bikes.”