Talk:Curtiss Motorcycles

OddBike (talk) 19:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Image request

How about an image of the motorcycle?

Company name

At the company website[23] I see no evidence that the company is doing business as BSA, only as CMC. An article in the NYT confirms the Confederate name[24]. What was the basis for the move? Do they have a new holding company arrangement? That shouldn't govern the article name. --Dhartung | Talk 05:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Requested move 26 July 2006

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move to Confederate Motor Company. Extraordinary Machine 00:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Birmingham Speed of America → Confederate Motor Company – article name is for obscure holding company, not the consumer brand still in use. Rename per most common name rule. --Dhartung | Talk 20:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support as nom. --Dhartung | Talk 20:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Companies and brands are two different things. With smaller ones, both may not merit an article right now. What I try and do it create the brand article and then include the company and its history as a heading with sections so that it can be broken out at a future date. This allows a redirect to the portion of the article about the company and the redirect can include the correct categories for the company which avoids other issues. I'll try and do this breakout for the company now since as noted, the article is really about the brand. Vegaswikian 19:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• I'm unclear what your objection is (or if there is one). The request was to move an article to the well-known name, with the lesser-known name a redirect to this article as a result of the move. Thus, one article. I don't find that the holding company has any need for a separate article or even much of a separate treatment; as with most holding companies it seems to exist largely for tax or investment purposes (the reorganized company has a major investor from the Middle East). --Dhartung | Talk 02:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see this as two articles if and when the companies grow. I have modified the article to build a stronger section for the holding company so that it can be split to its own article at some point in time. The investors in the holding company should be inclued in that section. Vegaswikian 05:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty then. I believe you're overthinking this, though! --Dhartung | Talk 05:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yea, people have that complaint about me ;-) Vegaswikian 20:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Vegaswikian 05:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Article has been rewritten for move. --Dhartung | Talk 20:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Evidence of actual production?

I'm skeptical that Confederate qualifies as production motorcycle company; they make every bike by hand, to order as far as I can tell. The only evidence that they have even sold one single bike is this quote by actor Ryan Reynolds in Mens Fitness. He thinks they make 50 bikes a year. Any citations showing production numbers?

In general I think handmade, one-off bikes should go under the Motorcycle builders category and only mass producers should be listed under 'manufacturers'.--Dbratland (talk) 22:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Odd sentence

"Plant staffing is expected to increase from twelve to as many as thirteen employees." Not only is there no notation for this statement, but it doesn't even make sense. From 12 "to as many as" 13 implies there's a chance that partial people will be hired. That sounds like a worker safety issue. Alyeska2112 —Preceding undated comment added 00:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC).

I disagree, I don't think it implies partial people (part timers) but "from the current twelve to thirteen." or "twelve to exactly thirteen employees." may read better. It reminded me of the old farmfoods ad (UK) "guess how much? A pound? no, Way Below, only 95p". by notation did you mean citation? 94.197.127.231 (talk) 13:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Hellcat(3).png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

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Confederate Motorcycles Lives On!

Please accept my sincere apologies. I made the mistake of editing this page which was not allowed given my ownership of the company. The moderators here have asked me to post the changes that I thought were appropriate to this talk page. As you will likely be able to see from my previous edits, I was trying to update the company ownership, key people, website, models and other information. I had initially cited the company website but eventually cited a number of external sources for the information that I was adding. If you also google the company, you will find other sources for the information that I amended and/or appended as well. Most of the information has either been reported by the press or is out there in the public domain.

The Company name is Confederate Motorcycles LLC and its location is now 2620 6th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL. On March 29, 2018 Confederate Motorcycles spun off from Curtiss Motorcycles and is its own entity. The Founder of Confederate brand is still H. Matthew Chambers but I (Ernest Lee) own the company. Key People at the company are Ernest Lee, Jay Etheridge, Jason Reddick, Landers Sevier, Andrew Reuther and Dave Hargreaves. All but Ernest Lee have been involved with the brand for several years. The current models are the Hellcat, Hellcat Speedster, F-117 Fighter, P-51 Combat Fighter, FA-13 Combat Bomber and Wraith. There are several sources on the internet for information on these models of motorcycle. The website for the company is and always has been confederate.com. The Hellcat and Hellcat Speedster are the first motorcycles produced by the company that are based upon the Harley Davidson FXDR frame and 117 cubic inch Milwaukee Eight engine.

As I mentioned much of this information is available on the internet and in press articles that have been published about Confederate. The photos of the new models can be found on Wikipedia Commons and I have granted a license for those images. End of the day, I just wanted this page to report accurate information about Confederate Motorcycles. I now leave it to you to make that happen. I trust that you will get it right. Thank you. Earnestly (talk) 22:29, 22 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Hi again Ernest, I didn't revert your edits solely because of your COI. You are correct that it is strongly recommended that you don't edit the article directly, but not absolutely forbidden. I reverted it because I am not convinced that the company you are now running is the same company. The article is about a company, not the Confederate motorcycle brand. Confederate Motors has changed its name to Curtiss Motorcycles, and this page should continue to be about them. The company you run is a new company at a different location. Buying the IP is not the same as taking over a company as a going concern.

This page is not heavily watched, so if you want other editors (besides me) to be involved you will need to attract their attention in one of the following ways. If you still want to make changes to this page, use the {{request edit}} template with the exact changes you want to make. If you want to start a discussion on the purpose of this page, use the WP:Request for comment process. If you want to start a new article on your company, then WP:Articles for creation is the place – but please read WP:Notability first because if you can't comply with that you will be wasting your time. SpinningSpark 14:23, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello SpinningSpark. Sorry if I mischaracterized the reasons that you deleted the edits that I had made to the Article. That was not my intention. The company that I am running is not the same legal entity as Curtiss Motorcycles. Confederate Motorcycles LLC spun off from Curtiss Motorcycles in much the same way that other brands spin off to become separate companies. A spin-off is the exact opposite of a merger in legal terms. PayPal, for example, was once part of eBay, but eBay later spun off PayPal creating a whole new company separate and apart from eBay. In this way, Curtiss Motorcycles spun off Confederate Motorcycles LLC creating a new company that continued on with the Confederate Motorcycles brand and all gas powered motorcycles separate and apart from Curtiss Motorcycles. Many of the employees of Curtiss Motorcycles now work for Confederate Motorcycles. Because it is a gas powered motorcycle, Confederate Motorcycles actually builds the Curtiss Warhawk for Curtiss Motorcycles. Confederate Motorcycles has its own National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and US Department of Transportation listings as a manufacturer of motorcycles. We buy, sell and service all Confederate Motorcycles. We also perform warranty repairs on all Confederate Motorcycles ever sold. We manufacture replacement parts for legacy Confederate motorcycles. As an attorney and entrepreneur, but certainly not as well versed in Wikipedia as most here, I would think that Curtiss Motorcycles should have its own page. They are doing some pretty amazing things with electric motorcycles over there and are certainly noteworthy. Thank you for your time and input and thank you editors for your attention. Please let me know if you have any follow up questions. Happy to help out anywhere I can. 40.132.18.166 (talk) 18:01, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

In looking over this article, and the proposals and information provided in this talk page, it is my understanding that Confederate Motors Inc. changed names to Curtiss Motorcycles, and has now sold all the rights, IP, Branding, to what is now Confederate Motorcycles LLC. If this is correct then the best solution may be to rename this article to Curtiss Motorcycles, the actual name of this entity/brand, and create a separate article for Confederate Motorcycles LLC. It meets to notability requirements being that it is the continuation of the Confederate Brand that this article was originally based on. Rightooth (talk) 12:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Requested edit on 24 May 2020

Seagull123 Φ added in section and subsection headers for this section, and removed repeated {{request edit}} templates at 12:28, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Responder, please read the above discussion before actioning. SpinningSpark 13:25, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Request #1

Information to be added or removed: "Confederate Motors, Inc" no longer exists. The company is operating as "Confederate Motorcycles LLC" and is now a Private company. Curtiss Motorcycles Inc is still a publicly owned company. Explanation of issue: Confederate Motors Inc changed its name to Curtiss Motorcycles Inc and Confederate Motorcycles LLC spun off from the parent company forming its own company. Ernest Lee and Ernest Lee Capital LLC then purchased Confederate Motorcycles LLC. References supporting change: https://www.thedrive.com/news/19943/confederate-motorcycles-lives-on-under-new-ownership Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #2

Information to be added or removed: Ernest Lee and Ernest Lee Capital LLC own Confederate Motorcycles LLC. Explanation of issue: Confederate Motors Inc sold Confederate Motorcycles LLC to Ernest Lee and Ernest Lee Capital LLC. References supporting change: https://www.thedrive.com/news/19943/confederate-motorcycles-lives-on-under-new-ownership Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #3

Information to be added or removed: Key People within the company are Ernest Lee, Jay Etheridge, Jason Reddick, Landers Sevier, Andrew Reuther, Dave Hargreaves Explanation of issue: Ernest Lee owns Confederate Motorcycles LLC. Jay Etheridge was the CFO of Curtiss Motorcycles Inc. and moved over to Confederate Motorcycles in 2020. Jason Reddick was the Master Technician at Curtiss Motorcycles and moved over to Confederate Motorcycles in 2020. Landers Sevier has worked for Confederate Motorcycles since the spin-off in 2018. Andrew Reuther and Dave Hargreaves previously worked for Confederate Motors but now work for Confederate Motorcycles LLC. References supporting change: https://www.confederate.com/media Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #4

Information to be added or removed: Products should be the as follows: Confederate Hellcat, Hellcat Speedster, F-117 Fighter, P-51 Combat Fighter, FA-13 Combat Bomber and Confederate Wraith. Legacy products are as follows: P-120 Fighter, B-120 Wraith, Hellcat Speedster, X-132 Hellcat, F-124 Hellcat, F-113 Hellcat, and the Original Confederate Hellcat. These model names should stick to the convention such as the "P-51 Combat Fighter" (not G2 P51 Combat Fighter) Explanation of issue: The new models are not currently listed and the legacy models are not properly identified as such. References supporting change: https://blog.dupontregistry.com/motorcycles/confederate-motorcycle-announces-three-new-motorcycle-models/ Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #5

Information to be added or removed: Products should be the as follows: The website for the company is "www.confederate.com" Explanation of issue: Confederate Motors Inc changed its name to Curtiss Motorcycles Inc and Confederate Motorcycles LLC spun off from the parent company forming its own company. References supporting change: https://www.thedrive.com/news/19943/confederate-motorcycles-lives-on-under-new-ownership Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #6

Information to be added or removed: In April 2018, Confederate announced an all new Confederate G3 P-51 Combat Fighter and that it was designing a Hellcat and a Wraith for future manufacture and distribution worldwide. Explanation of issue: This is significant news for the company that was released in 2018. References supporting change: https://www.thedrive.com/news/19943/confederate-motorcycles-lives-on-under-new-ownership Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #7

Information to be added or removed: In May 2018, Confederate launched a factory buyback, consignment and restoration plan for pre-owned Confederate motorcycles and began its current practice of giving Confederate owners a trade-in allowance equal to what they had paid for their Confederate Motorcycle toward the purchase of a new model. Explanation of issue: This is news for the company that was released in 2019. This is remarkable because no other company offers such a buyback program. References supporting change: https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/confederate-motorcycles-to-continue/ Confederate Motorcycles To Continue Manufacturing High-End Motorcycles Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #8

Information to be added or removed: In April of 2020, Confederate announced plans for the new Hellcat, Hellcat Speedster and Wraith.[6] The Hellcat and Speedster are the first motorcycles produced by the company that are based upon the Harley Davidson FXDR frame and 117 cubic inch Milwaukee Eight engine. Explanation of issue: This is news for the company that was released in 2020. This is remarkable because this is the first time that Confederate Motorcycles has produced 6 distinct models at the same time. References supporting change: https://riders.drivemag.com/news/confederate-motorcycles-are-working-on-new-bikes Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #9

Information to be added or removed: The 2020 Confederate Hellcat and Hellcat Speedster will be the first Confederate Motorcycles homologated for worldwide delivery with ABS Automatic Braking Systems. Explanation of issue: This is remarkable because this is the first time that Confederate Motorcycles has produced two models that are Euro4/5 compliant with ABS Automatic Braking Systems. References supporting change: https://blog.dupontregistry.com/motorcycles/confederate-motorcycle-announces-three-new-motorcycle-models/ AND https://www.topspeed.com/motorcycles/motorcycle-news/confederate-motorcycles-touted-to-release-a-new-hellcat-in-2020-ar187974.html Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Request #10

Information to be added or removed: The article states that "In 2018, the Warhawk model based on there P51 Fighter will be the last and final gas-powered motorcycle, only 35 bikes will be produced." The Article should state "In 2018, the Curtiss Warhawk model based on the Confederate P-51 Combat Fighter will be the last and final gas-powered motorcycle by Curtiss Motorcycles." Explanation of issue: This is remarkable because Curtiss Motorcycles Inc. is only producing electric motorcycles and Confederate Motorcycles LLC is only producing gas powered motorcycles; one of which it manufactures for Curtiss. References supporting change: https://riders.drivemag.com/news/confederate-motorcycles-are-working-on-new-bikes Earnestly (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)Earnestly

Requested move 25 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: uncontested move. DrKay (talk) 11:59, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

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Confederate Motors → Curtiss Motorcycles – This article should be moved to Curtiss Motorcycles because the company has changed names, and the Confederate IP and branding has been sold off and revived. Curtiss Motorcycles currently exists as a company entirely separate from the Confederate Motorcycles that is in operation today.

References

Rightooth (talk) 15:16, 25 May 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. buidhe 15:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: What is the WP:COMMONNAME? buidhe 15:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support the move, we typically move company articles when they undergo a name change. @Buidhe: The old name will still be the COMMONNAME in sources predating 2018, but as the new name will be used from now on, that will (has) become the common name. Confederate Motorcycles should redirect to the new article, because this is the company that made the famous machines. If the new Confederate company ever gets an article that will have to be disambiguated, but that's a future problem. SpinningSpark 18:28, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• @DrKay: the request above was to move to Curtiss Motorcycles, not Curtiss Motors as you moved it. I presume that was an error. Note that there is a disambiguation page at the title which will need to be moved first. SpinningSpark 16:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Per WP:TWODABS, it could probably be deleted outright, with a hatnote on this page linking to the section of Glenn Curtiss in question. -2pou (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Two companies now

Check out

• https://www.confederatemotorcycles.com (Birmingham, Alabama)
• https://www.curtissmotorcycles.com (Leeds, Alabama)

Though the two companies have not explained themselves well, it appears that there is a surviving 'Confederate' product line that is still being sold from the Birmingham location. The owner of the original Confederate company, Matthew Chambers, seems to have sold the old gas-powered line of business to a man named Ernest Lee. There is a publicly-traded Curtiss Motorcycles company whose Bloomberg page is at this link, with the president said to be H. Matthew Chambers. The new bearer of the 'Confederate' name appears to be the spinoff, and intends to solely make gas-powered motorcycles. The Curtiss company has announced an electric motorcycle, the Curtiss 1. You get most of this from web searches rather than the companies themselves. This Forbes article has the most complete story:

...in 2017, Chambers made a massive pivot. He offloaded Confederate (which is still in operation to some degree) and started a new company, Curtiss Motorcycles, with an exclusive focus on electric motorcycles

–EdJohnston (talk) 17:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The lead captures this briefly stating Confederate Motorcycles LLC purchased the intellectual property rights for the Confederate brand and designs and continues to make gasoline motorcycles. It can't be linked to until someone creates a new page specific to Confederate Motorcycles LLC, if it meets GNG. There are some foundations above in #Requested edit on 24 May 2020 if someone were to create a new page, there are some independent items in there that can be used.

Here is my understanding of the companies: -2pou (talk) 18:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Confederate Motors, Inc. (1991-2017)

Curtiss Motorcycles, Inc. (2017-present)

Confederate Motorcycles, LLC. New spinoff (2018-2020)

Combat Motors Renamed (June 2020-present)

The original company was called Confederate Motors, not Confederate Motorcycles. SpinningSpark 22:26, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Good catch. Thanks! Updated it along with new info below.
Wow, interesting timing of this. I just checked the Confederate site, and it looks like they're going for a new name themselves, changing to Confederated Motorcycles. When I saw this, I was curious and checked some search site caches. It looks like the change went live on the site sometime today before 18:52 GMT when comparing the Bing cache (dated 6/15/2020, but no timestamp, still using "Confederate"--I archived it, but the Bing cache appears to be blacklisted) to the Google cache (includes timestamp). I updated the chart above just to be accurate. Total speculation on my part and WP:OR, but I'm guessing the recent changes in the world responding to the George Floyd protests drove this rename. The real point here, though is that maybe the updated name will help clarify whatever splitting might happen to this article in the future. -2pou (talk) 22:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's settled at Combat Motors, and officially announced. -2pou (talk) 16:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Updated logo

The logo that is shown on the page presently is out of date. It is either for a) the previous Confederate Motors, b) the spin off Confederate(d) Motors or c) the spin-off-successor Combat Motors. Regardless, I have a logo traced from the current Curtiss Motorcycles web site and materials.

Curtiss Motorcycles handscript logo