VARESE, Italy – Harley-Davidson closed the deal on the MV Agusta purchase on August 7. Since then, company leadership has
worked to polish the Italian organization in three major areas: 1) the re-start of production, 2) development of a broader
model range, and 3) the procurement of a larger dealer base with which to do business.
Matt Levatich, president & managing director, MV Agusta, is working closely with Claudio Castiglioni, the Godfather of MV
Agusta.
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"Our initial focus has been on the production line, and we're doing very nicely getting to our planned daily production rates,"
Matt Levatich told Dealernews during an interview at the MV Agusta factory on Thursday. Levatich, after having served in a variety of roles for H-D both
in the United States and Europe, was tapped to serve as president and managing director of MV Agusta Motor SpA. Only two employees
came to work at MV Agusta from the Harley-Davidson operation in the United States. Levatich is one of them. The other is Gene
Gazzetti, who's running the manufacturing and the supply chains.
Levatich says MV is in a similar re-birth position to what H-D was in the early 1990s following the employee take-over. He
says MV employees worked through the month of August and September in an attempt to re-start production and fulfill orders
that had been coming in from throughout the world. The first bikes under H-D ownership rolled off of the line September 29.
Now, the company is producing about 30 bikes per day.
The Harley-Davidson purchase of MV Agusta is made obvious at the MV facility in Varese by multiple wall-sized signs.
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"Product development is a second major project area," Levatich said. "We're putting a pretty significant emphasis on product
development."
Production begins with the engines, which are assembled by a team of six workers.
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How will MV Agusta and Cagiva jive with the Buell brand? "They're a very different product, yet absolutely complimentary,"
Levatich says. "We don't want to be chasing the same customers. Buell has established itself in a unique position in the streetfighter
arena, and there's segmentation based on price."
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