Guys all over the VOG are salty as hell. While I'm not happy about Victory shutting down at the end of the year, it hurts me more in the wallet. I had hoped to trade my Octane in for a newer model in 5-6 years if they had another such fun cruiser. But, I guess I'll be upgrading to a V-MAX instead. Or, buy another Octane and keep it as a "parts bike". Kind of like when you buy a 914 or 944
If anything, this opens up an opportunity for all of the aftermarket and custom shops to continue support for the brand. Especially if Victory will liquidate their tooling and manufacturing hardware. Many of the Victory line share similar Polaris parts. This move was to satisfy the share-holders, and literally right after the announcement they took a $5/share hit. Smart? They may have looked at it as two brands fighting for the same market-share, when really with some proper marketing they could have hit two separate groups of riders and come out on top. Instead the Victory brand suffered from a lack of support from Polaris (dealers, parts/service, new product launch, incentives, MARKETING) and it just couldn't gain share of voice in the marketplace.