EBR Owners Trademark "Black Lightning"
Something 'Quick, Dark, and Low' coming this fall
Liquid Asset Partners LLC, owners of Erik Buell Racing, have filed a trademark application for the name “Black Lightning” for use on “motorcycles and structural parts therefor.” The application was filed Oct. 27, just over a month EBR sent out a press release promising something “quick, dark and low” this fall. The name “Black Lightning” would certainly fit the descriptors “quick” and “low.”
Of course, the name also conjures up memories of the Vincent Black Lightning, a classic bike recognized as the fastest production motorcycle in the world during its production run from 1948 to 1952, thanks in large part to Rollie Free and his record-setting Bonneville Salt Flats run.
The name “Black Lightning,” however, isn’t currently trademarked in the U.S. for use on motorcycles despite four attempts to do so since 1996. In an ironic twist, one of those applications, filed in May 2001 by Feuling R&D in Ventura, Calif., was abandoned after facing opposition from Harley-Davidson which claimed the name infringed on its trademark for the Buell Lightning.
In a press release from Sept. 23, Liquid Asset Partners Chief Executive Officer and EBR’s Chief Financial Officer Bill Melvin said: “This fall, we have something ‘Quick, Dark, and Low’ in the works that should be exciting for urban street riders, and we are making real progress on expanding the range of models of the 1190 platform, as well as developing and delivering accessories that our EBR riders want. There is a bright future for EBR, and as part of that, work is proceeding on a sub-$10k platform for 2018.”
From Melvin’s description, it’s easy to infer the Black Lightning would be a cruiser, which, again, would be ironic considering Buell’s history with Harley-Davidson. With the EBR brand’s focus on performance, a potential cruiser based on the company’s 1190 platform may be a potential rival to the likes of the xDiavel or VRod.
EBR is slated to be at the Long Beach IMS with what it describes as 2017.5 and 2018 model year prototypes, and from what Melvin says, it sounds like the EBR Black Lightning may be one of them. We’ll have more information here on Motorcycle.com as it develops.
Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.
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Of everything Buell has done, if I could have one it would be the S1 Lightning. After that an S3 Thunderbolt. They were cool.
A Buell cruiser? That would be hilarious! It's much more likely to be a streetfighter than even a standard, but if it's anything like a reasonably priced Gurney Alligator I'm all for it. https://uploads.disquscdn.c...