Engines are assembled at Buell Motorcycle in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall.GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Inside a nondescript building in Cascade Township, Bill Melvin and his team are in the final stretch of a years-long quest to build the next great American motorcycle. Buell Motorcycles plans to launch the Super Cruiser this fall, and Melvin, the company’s CEO, hopes to give industry heavyweights such as Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycle a run for their money. The bike retails for $26,000, blending the design of a classic American cruiser with the power of a European superbike. “When I see it, it makes you feel like you want to go ride,” Melvin said during a tour of Buell’s headquarters at 2700 Patterson Ave. SE, where each bike, from its engine to its gas tank, is hand assembled. A Super Cruiser test bike is assembled at Buell Motorcycle in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. Grand Rapids isn’t a city that typically comes to mind for motorcycle manufacturing. But Melvin is hoping to change that. The company is expanding as it prepares to launch production of the Super Cruiser, which has received 6,000 pre-orders and is generating industry buzz that landed Melvin an interview on Bloomberg Television in May. Within the next three years, Buell plans to hire 162 employees, more than tripling its current headcount. It also plans to invest $18.5 million to purchase its headquarters and beef up its manufacturing capacity there. The company is currently leasing the space. “We’ve really been welcomed with open arms to grow this here in Grand Rapids,” Melvin said, “and that’s a strong passion of ours — to have it be a Grand Rapids and Michigan story.”CEO Bill Melvin in his office at Buell Motorcycle Company's home base in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. Buell’s history Melvin, a Forest Hills Public Schools graduate whose father placed him on his first motorcycle at age 4, didn’t start the company from scratch. In the motorcycle world, Buell is an iconic name. The company was launched in 1983 by Erik Buell, a former motorcycle racer and Harley-Davidson engineer. Buell, which was acquired by Harley-Davidson in 1998 after previous investments in the company, built its name producing high-performance, racing-inspired street bikes. It racked up awards and industry accolades along the way. However, as Harley-Davidson’s sales fell amid the Great Recession, Harley-Davidson announced in 2009 it was discontinuing the Buell Motorcycles brand and refocusing its business strategy on its core line of motorcycles. Erik Buell later spun off the company into Erik Buell Racing. But the company fell on hard times and went into receivership in April 2015. That’s where Melvin, 47, enters the story. At the time, he was CEO of Liquid Asset Partners, a Grand Rapids-based company that liquidates and sells off assets of businesses that are restructuring or have fallen into receivership or bankruptcy. (Melvin’s partner, Chad Warner, leads the company today).Engines are assembled at Buell Motorcycle in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. When Melvin saw Erik Buell Racing hit the auction block at Walworth County Circuit Court in Wisconsin for $2 million in January 2016, he pounced. What he saw in Erik Buell Racing was a high-performance engine that was durable, fast, and had proven itself in the marketplace. At the time, he considered selling the company to another buyer but eventually settled on relaunching the business himself.The Buell Motorcycle Super Cruiser at the home base in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. But challenges remained. While Melvin relaunched Erik Buell Racing in 2017 and gradually began manufacturing high-performance sports bikes, he knew that tapping into a larger customer base would require the original Buell Motorcycles name, which Harley-Davidson still controlled.Engineers work on designs at Buell Motorcycle Company's home base in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. So, in 2019, Melvin began seeking rights to the Buell name, “and through some divine intervention and some really good attorneys,” he was able to do so in 2020.CEO Bill Melvin in his office at Buell Motorcycle Company's home base in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. “It was definitely a hallelujah moment,” said Melvin, who grew up riding motorcycles near Egypt Valley and 4 Mile Road NE and “anywhere we could get onto a dirt road or a field.” Buell’s chief growth officer, David Sassano, added that it was a particularly meaningful moment to Melvin because his father, who founded the company that became Liquid Asset Partners, had deep ties to the industry. “His umbilical cord was a motorcycle chain,” Sassano said. “His dad was a longtime historian, mechanic, dealmaker in the motorcycle industry.” Plans for growth Today, Buell Motorcycles resembles a young, small company. On a recent afternoon, its headquarters was filled with just a couple dozen engineers, production staff, supply chain workers, and front office employees who were putting finishing touches on the Super Cruiser.Production lead Joe Genovese assembles an engine at Buell Motorcycle in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. “We want to start selling them,” Melvin said, watching two workers install a shiny, black gas tank on a Super Cruiser. “We’ve got a lot of people that want to buy and ride it.”Quality technician Michael Blanchard, left, and production technician Christopher Schulte assemble a Super Cruiser test bike at Buell Motorcycle in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. Testing is taking place throughout the country, from 14,000-foot mountain roads in Colorado to the scorching deserts of Arizona and Death Valley California. All of which, Melvin says, helps ensure the Super Cruiser “can live a long life.” “We’ve had media rides, we’ve had some influencer rides,” he said, “but now you’re looking at all the final components going on the bike and that’s exciting because that’s means it’s closer to getting out to the customers.” Over the next eight months, after testing wraps up and the Super Cruiser hits the market, Buell’s factory floor will begin to come to life, Melvin says. Currently, the company has 50 employees, but another 162 people are expected to be hired over the next three years. Plans are in motion to add a second manufacturing line, enabling Buell to complete 300 Super Cruisers a month early next year. Production is expected to hit 28,000 bikes in 2028.The Buell Motorcycle Super Cruiser at the home base in Cascade Township on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The West Michigan manufacturer is expanding and projecting significant growth with a new motorcycle launch this fall. “The Super Cruiser has a large order base,” Melvin said. “Market demand shows that the volumes will continue to expand, and that we’ll continue to need to expand what we’re doing here at the factory.” Preorders for the Super Cruiser total $120 million, according to a memo from the Michigan Strategic Fund, which in May awarded the company a $972,000 Michigan Business Development Program grant to help the company expand. The Super Cruiser won’t face any shortage of competition. U.S. brands such as Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycle have a devoted customer base, and a host of other companies have a big share of the market too, including Honda, Kawasaki, BMW and Yamaha. Nonetheless, Melvin says the Super Cruiser stands out. “The Super Cruiser is lighter, faster, and has better styling than anything else on the market right now,” he said, noting the bike is about 200-300 pounds lighter than what he calls “heavy cruisers” made by Harley-Davidson. He says the bike’s V-Twin engine boasts 175 horsepower with 101 pounds of torque. Another selling point: Buell’s American roots. Initially, when Melvin purchased the company, its supply chain was global, with parts coming from Europe, Asia and the U.S. But over the past three years, as planning for Super Cruiser got underway, the company focused on building relationships with U.S. and Michigan suppliers. Today, about 60% of the Super Cruiser’s parts are made in America, Melvin said. Siting in his office, surrounded by motorcycle trophies, drawings, and other memorabilia, he ticks off a list of suppliers: gas tanks and fenders made in Michigan, suspension system from Minnesota, radiators produced in Texas. “And the list continues to go on and on,” Melvin said. “We’ve been bringing back a tremendous amount of supply chain.” Doing so isn’t cheap and adds to the cost of producing the bike, he said. But it’s what he says his customers are looking for. “Our customers want an American product,” Melvin said, “and we’re giving them an American product.” Looking forward, Melvin said he’s confident in Buell’s future, and that the time and money he’s investing in the company’s relaunch will pay off. He said Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycle, which is owned by Polaris, are the two biggest U.S. motorcycle companies, but that Buell has “a good opportunity to get to third place in the next couple years.” “There’s always turbulence and bumps that will occur in the growth of a relaunch like we’re doing,” Melvin said. “But the passion of our customers, of our team, and of the support we’re getting from the community helps us move past that.” ©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
