Harley-Davidson Sportster line-up set to be axed from European range

The axe swinging above models in the Harley-Davidson range has fallen again and this time it is the Sportster range getting the chop from its European line-ups.

The American company hasn’t been far away from the headlines in recent weeks following the ushering in of new CEO Jochen Zeitz, who has promised to be ruthless in his efforts to bring the storied firm back on track following years of sliding sales and profits.

Unveiling the so-called Rewire strategy, Zeitz in July revealed models would be axed and sweeping cuts made across the board, though to date this has only been felt on the forthcoming Bronx streetfighter which - officially speaking - has been put on indefinite hold, but reading between the lines may have been dropped altogether in its current form.

Now Moto Station in France has discovered Harley-Davidson will soon give the entire Sportster range the flick from European dealerships. The reasoning is a fairly logical one as the models don’t currently meet incoming Euro5 emissions regulations and Harley-Davidson isn’t in a position to commit the cost needed to update them.

That’s not to say the Sportster doesn’t have a future on European soil with a new line-up using the firm’s fresh Revolution Max engines, which will in the meantime debut with the Pan America ADV.

Even so, that’s not an insignificant number of machines that will be going by the wayside in 2021 with the Sporster range comprising eight models - the 1200 Custom, Forty-Eight Special, Forty-Eight, Iron 883, Iron 1200, Roadster, Superflow and Superflow 1200GT. 

The news comes after Harley-Davidson confirmed it would also be saying farewell to India - the world’s largest motorcycle market - after 10 unhappy years of slow sales.