Born out of the Victory CORE concept bike that was unveiled at the New York IMS earlier this year, the all-new Cross County was officially announced yesterday going head-to-head with the Harley-Davidson Street Glide.  Go to motorcycle.com to get all of the specs and details on this bike and the rest of the 2010 Victory line-up.

Polaris Industries, the parent company of Victory Motorcycles, announced this week it will form a new on-road vehicle division.

The official announcement says the new division “maximizes cohesive and strategic growth for Victory Motorcycles and other on-road products and brands”.

Which begs the question: what other on-road products and brands?

Apart from the Victory line-up of cruisers and touring motorcycles, Polaris’ catalog consists of ATVs and snowmobiles. Oh, and they used to make watercraft as well. None of those can be considered “on-road” forms of transportation.

So what does that Medina, Minnesota company have up its sleeve?

Clues may be found if you read between the lines with the management team behind Polaris’ new on-road division.

Motorcycle Hall of Famer Mark Blackwell has been the man behind Victory Motorcycles since 2000, helping Victory’s expansion, producing bikes that compete against the big boys from Milwaukee.

Blackwell leaves his previous position as vice-president of Victory Motorcycles to become vice-president of motorcycles. See the difference there? It’s a slight one, but an important one. What we can infer from the change in job-titles is that Polaris will introduce other non-Victory motorcycles. If Victory is the “New American Motorcycle”, could we be seeing a NEW new American Motorcycle?

Polaris already has the cruiser and touring segments covered with Victory, and dirt bikes don’t fit the on-road descriptor.

What about moving into sportbikes like Harley-Davidson did with Buell? Or maybe, as pplasm suggests on the Motorcycle.com forum, a trike like their ATV competitor Can-Am’s Spyder? Heck, it could even be a Victory Vision scooter.

So far, Polaris isn’t talking, but we’ll keep our ears to the ground on this one.

What the hell is that? Come back tomorrow to find out!

The New York City stop of the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show starts this Friday and I think my ears have begun bleeding from all the chatter going on around the Motorcycle.com virtual office about the 2010 Honda Fury. Teaser images, patented drawings, leaky blog links and childhood-like excitement for something new from the Japanese mainstay has been filling both our homepages. But it’s an American motorcycle company that’s got my blood pumping. Known bad-ass designers and thrill seekers to boot, the folks at Victory Motorcycles also have an unveiling on Friday and I’m even more intrigued by the photograph shown on the IMS website then I am for that squiggly photoshopped image of the Fury.

I’ve looked at quite a few motorcycles in my years here at MO. And I’ve seen them in many unique ways and points of view, so I of course have been wracking my creative little peanut to figure out what this image might represent. A custom billet wheel? Not with that notch in there. A brake lever? A Fender? A finger-chap conch? It certainly seems like a cast piece by the textured shadow on the right, but the middle appears rather hot pressed. Damn you macro lenses and teaser media leaks! I’m gunna guess it’s a fender strut and come back on Friday when they let the whole wide world know what’s at the “CORE” of this concept motorcycle from Victory.

While walking around the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica tonight I tried to simply cruise past the open air magazine stand and not shop as I usually do. I didn’t have the carrying capacity on the motorcycle tonight to pick up my usual Friday night stack. My eyes however had to look from afar even though my body was keeping itself out of arms reach – they’re a weak team. I was surprised to see on the cover of New York City’s Surface Magazine, “Style and Design for Inspired Living”. Beneath a Louis Vuitton-encrusted Janine Henkes (the model) was Tiger Bracy’s visionary creation called the Victory Vision 800. Awesome! It’s rare to see two of my favorite worlds come together in a personally appealing way – fashion and motorcycles. I bought the magazine and added it to my collection of course.

Congrats to Tiger for designing and building such an oddity, and thanks to Robert and Manny Pandya for bringing Victory Motorcycles to the general public’s eye on the cover of Surface Magazine’s Annual Avant Guardian Issue.