The South Shall Ride Again

The market
The American motorcycle industry is as alluring as it is dangerous. Entrepreneurs routinely enter this "glamour" business, sure that they have the next great machine. But they really survive only by the grace of one dominant manufacturer: Harley-Davidson. Producing more than 200,000 units a year, Harley not only owns the market; it makes it.

Harley-Davidson aficionados annually spend half a billion dollars on Harley parts, accessories, and merchandise. In the past decade Harley has been so hot that customers have waited up to two years to take delivery on new motorcycles. That lag has spawned a market for Harley knockoffs, or "clones" built from commercially available Harley-Davidson aftermarket parts. The niche companies that make those motorcycles -- Titan, Big Dog, and American IronHorse, among others -- each typically produce no more than a few thousand units a year. They also struggle to stay afloat.

Chambers, of course, dismisses the clones as insignificant. "All these guys have built the wrong bike. There's no riding advantage, no chassis integrity. How can you build brand equity with that?" he asks.

As for Harley-Davidson, it's little better, the clumsy product of "Yankee engineering." Adds Chambers: "They are about marketing and distributing a product. We have built our company around the product itself. This is a Field of Dreams story."

In fact, you don't have to press Chambers too much to sense that Harley is part of a de facto conspiracy with roots in a certain hot-button historic event. "The Madison Avenue spin-based culture was codified for good after Lincoln's war," says Chambers. "The biggest brands in America -- Coke, McDonald's, Harley-Davidson -- are all fake. They're all just smoke and mirrors."

And yet, Chambers blows a little smoke of his own in touting his creation, which he labels "the real badass motorcycle." He also claims not to be a clone maker. But to the trade, a Confederate is just another clone because it uses the same "V-Twin" motor as Harley-Davidson and all its imitators.

Nonetheless, some observers say that Confederate has done a good job of distinguishing its bikes from the other clones. Reg Kittrelle is the executive editor of Thunder Press, a Scotts Valley, Calif., monthly that covers the Harley-Davidson and clone markets. He says, "A Confederate has an absolutely unique look to it, and with a field flooded with Harley wanna-bes it's refreshing to see a company go off in a different direction."

"Confederate is completely different from the other clone manufacturers in terms of cosmetics, handling, and build quality," echoes Frank Kaisler, editor of Hot Rod Bikes, a trade magazine based in Los Angeles.

And yet, the shadow always looms.

Kittrelle, calling Harley "a very shrewd manufacturer," says that the company recently introduced a proprietary new-generation motor. That means "all of a sudden, all the other bikes are seen to be using the 'old' technology," he says, adding that Confederate, with its "extreme" look and "brute" character, has a good niche position. "If they can hold that niche and manage the business, maybe they can make it," he says.

But it's easier to manage a business when you have money. Kaisler adds that Confederate desperately needs to spend money -- money it currently doesn't have -- on advertising to build brand awareness. And yet, how can it do that with such a loaded name?

Kittrelle views the Confederate label as a needless liability. So does David Edwards, editor-in-chief of Cycle World. He likes the machine. "It's very rough-hewn and organic," he says, but he's unsure of its creator. "He's definitely into the southern culture, and he gets esoteric on you real fast. This is definitely the kind of static this bike doesn't need."

And Edwards offers this practical note of caution: "Most people go broke trying to do what he's doing."

The rebel
A quick glance at the office of Mat Chambers, CEO, who calls himself "a real right-brain kind of guy," would suggest that money -- or at least keeping track of it -- doesn't matter much. His cluttered desk yields the respectable material that most CEOs on self-improvement jags favor -- books with titles like Integrity and Zen Leadership. But it's the stuff on the walls that really grabs you by the throat: an Audubon print of a hawk feasting on a duck, old pieces of Confederate money, and an old photo of an earlier southern "hero."

Every day, Chambers labors under the piercing gaze of Nathan Bedford Forrest, arguably the Confederacy's most brilliant tactician and fiercest fighter, and, depending on your point of view, somewhat of a terrorist. A millionaire plantation owner and slave trader, Forrest joined the Confederate army as a private in June 1861 and bulled his way up the ranks to general. Controversy dogged him as he fought with superiors and allegedly presided over the massacre of a black garrison. After the war, he lent his name to a fledgling organization soon to become the Ku Klux Klan, but later he disassociated himself from it.

Chambers does not share Forrest's views on race. He is attracted, rather, to Forrest's warrior spirit and seeming invincibility. Chambers likens the experience of riding a motorcycle to Forrest's riding into battle. It leaves the rider unprotected from the hazards of the road; it leaves him shielded only by the fervor that comes with true belief.

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