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This week, we have a great run-up of news to keep you busy:
- Harley-Davidson has approved a Q3 cash dividend of $0.1875 per share, leaving some riders wondering where the long-term R&D budget is headed.
- KTM has pulled the sheets off their brand new 2027 300 EXC HARDENDURO, complete with factory-grade armor, closed-cartridge WP forks, and the usual pure competition two-stroke grit.
- Kawasaki is teasing the return of the supercharged Ninja H2 and we think it is headed for EICMA (though patent filings hint that Euro compliance might come at the cost of a few ponies).
- ZXMoto has been thinking outside the cylinder box for a new 1,000cc V5 superbike they’re hoping to ready for track competition by 2028.
Let’s start with what Harley-Davidson is up to, yeah?
Industry Insider: Harley-Davidson Keeps the Suits Happy with Cash Dividends for Q3
Asking For a Friend: Is There R&D Funding?
Keeping an iconic motorcycle brand like Harley-Davidson humming requires two very different types of fuel – and while many of us are more familiar with the motorcycle side of things, an OEM like Harley-Davidson has the business side of things to consider. In this case, Harley-Davidson’s business side is keen on consistent cash flow for their shareholders, so they’ve gone and announced a payout.
According to a fresh wire drop from PR Newswire, the Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE: HOG) Board of Directors has officially approved a regular cash dividend of $0.1875 per share for Q3 of 2026. For those tracking the financial calendar, that payout lands on September 29, 2026, for shareholders of record as of September 15th.
On paper and looking ahead short-term, this kind of movement shows fiscal health. It tells Wall Street that the Bar & Shield’s recent “Back to the Bricks” Strategy is producing stability; at least for the next little bit, the business is generating enough free cash flow to handle daily operations, service existing debt, and return capital to investors without needing to hoard every penny for the future
Look a little deeper, though, and things get a tad more nuanced.
In the Powersports industry, every dollar distributed out to shareholder accounts is also a dollar that doesn’t head back into factory tooling, supply chain resilience, or R&D for next-gen platforms. The question remains: Could that capital released to shareholders have done more heavy lifting if it were deployed toward mending Harley-Davidson’s strained dealer networks, chipping away at retail unit production costs, or creating new bike potential?
Bottom line, balancing Leadership demands with rider expectation is an ongoing tightrope act in the Bar & Shield’s HQ. There is no denying that Harley-Davidson is keeping money moving, but the long-term picture will show just how much proverbial fire is left for the iron itself.
Fingers crossed.
For more information on recent movement from Harley-Davidson, check out the company’s full financial release via PR Newswire.
New Stuff: KTM Debuts the 2027 300 EXC HARDENDURO
Meet the Bike That’s Tackled the World’s Toughest Hard Enduro Events
If you’ve ever watched competitors wrestle bikes up the loose boulder fields of Erzberg or through the Romanian forests, you will have at least a general assumption that extreme enduro is less easy and more about mechanical survival. Despite the tough terrains, off-roading machines are at an all-time high and riders seeking out the ultimate platform to conquer the world will perhaps consider a new iteration of KTM’s apex off-road crawler: the 2027 300 EXC HARDENDURO.
Perched at the very top of the Austrian manufacturer’s enduro hierarchy (above both the standard EXC range and the cross-country 6DAYS editions), the 300 EXC HARDENDURO promises to allow riders to skip the usual aftermarket shopping spree, thanks in part to a veritable catalog of factory-developed racing hardware accessories bolted straight onto KTM’s benchmark 300cc two-stroke chassis.
Per KTM’s usual, everything for this bike is assembled right at the Mattighofen assembly line. The 2027 model comes pre-loaded with an aggressive pile of trail-tested protection and frame upgrades. The factory radiator fan is now standard and is supported by a composite skid plate, wrap-around handguards, and a dedicated clutch slave cylinder guard.
A black-anodized CNC-machined set of triple clamps and top-spec WP XACT Closed Cartridge forks feature tool-less base valve preload adjusters, while Black Excel rims laced to orange hubs are wrapped in Metzeler 6Days Extreme rubber (and ultra-sticky soft rear tire).
Stoppage is handled by a floating front rotor with a disc guard, and is paired with a solid rear disc fitted with safety wire and an orange protector, while the dash shows off a gripper-ribbed black Diamante saddle, soft grey ODI lock-on grips, and a handlebar map-select switch.
KTM completes the ensemble with dedicated front and rear pull straps – a lifesaver when manhandling a machine up a ledge or two – and the press release tells us that the 2027 300 EXC HARDENDURO will arrive dressed in a fresh graphics scheme and an orange Supersprox Stealth rear sprocket when it rolls off the production line this September.
For the full breakdown and high-resolution photo gallery of KTM’s new 2027 300 EXC HARDENDURO, check out the original coverage over on Motorcycle.com.
Rumor Has It: Kawasaki May Be Presenting a New H2 in Milan
Bringing Team Green’s H2 Debut Full Circle to Milanese Streets
You know what wthe Powersports industry needs to carry into the fall season? A new supercharged Team Green machine – specifically, whatever Kawasaki’s got in their shop ain anticipation of this year’s EICMA.
Riders present in the ‘net’s plethora of social feeds, groups and forums already know that Kawasaki Europe recently revealed a short teaser titled, “A new chapter of ‘Beyond Belief’ begins,” and the following tagline: “Return To Beyond Belief.” Certain sharp memories will recall that, back in 2014, Team Green brought forward the original Ninja H2 with the same “Built Beyond Belief” campaign motto.
The evidence is impossible to ignore: All industry radar points directly toward a formal public debut this coming November under the sprawling arena lights of EICMA in Milan, the exact stomping grounds that Kawasaki used to debut the original 2014 Ninja H2 over a decade ago.
Before you start dreaming of unrestricted top-end boost, though, remember that emissions is changing quite a few motorcycles as of late, and the new Ninja H2 will not be exempt from some tweaks. CARB and the U.S. EPA paperwork suggests that the 2027 Ninja H2 will debut with identical emissions data to the naked street-tuned Z H2. For the Ninja H2, that means a drop from 228 horsepower to around 197 pretty ponies
While shaving 31 ponies off a hyperbike sounds like another unfortunate result of our current economy, the motivation is purely regulatory. Euro 5 hurdles had previously forced the faired Ninja H2 out of European dealerships back in 2021, with both the Z H2 and the sport-touring H2 SX surviving abroad due to their cleaner emissions mapping.
Now that all H2 models seem to be under the same displacement umbrella, Kawasaki gets to bring its flagship missile machine back to European tarmac. American buyers might feel a bit short-changed on pure straight-line muscle, sure – but we think that Kawasaki is banking on the reappearance to their European fanbase offsetting the few grumbles they’ll get across the pond.
To dig further into the patent details, watch the original teaser over at Motorcycle.com.
Big-Bore Beauties: ZXMoto Prepares a 1,000cc Five-Cylinder Beauty for the Track
Competitive Debut to Grid Asphalt TBD
On one end of the industry, we have OEMs aiming to compete with new bike beauties within established platforms… but on the other end of the proverbial football field, odd cylinder configurations are clawing their way back into paddock conversation.
Honda made waves with its electric-compressor V3 prototype, but Chinese manufacturer ZXMoto has apparently decided that three cylinders is two too few. According to company dispatches confirmed by Visordown, ZXMoto founder and CEO Zhang Xue has publicly announced that his skunkworks team is actively engineering a brand-new, 1,000cc-class V5 engine destined for a high-performance superbike platform.
The name of the bike so far appears to be “APEX R,” and the game plan is relatively straightforward, if a tad ambitious: Get the five-cylinder mill sorted for competitive racing by 2028, then use those track-tested lessons to carve out a street-legal production variant for dealership floors down the road.
Easy peasy.
Paddock Talk vs. Technical Reality
While domestic reports out of China are already whispering of this new beauty’s capabilities – and some saying as much as 206-210hp will be given to this thing – Zhang Xue has kept the official blueprint details of his brainchild close to the proverbial chest. All we know for the time being is that this new liter bike will carry a V5 layout somewhat reminiscent of Honda’s legendary RC211V.
In line with the above shenanigans, we can expect that ZXMoto will have a competitive racing debut slated for the 2028 season prior to any showroom rollout. The project is apparently still in the powertrain R&D and packaging development phase, and we think they might sit there for a hot minute, as squeezing a fifth combustion chamber into a compact frame will likely induce packaging headaches anywhere from asymmetric crankshaft balancing to complex cooling channels and exhaust header routing.
The benefit of such a machine? According to Visordown, perks of a build like this one could include a distinctive firing order, tractability advantages off corner exits, and a unique pipe pitch – though where this thing will be at in terms of emissions is anybody’s guess.
For more information on ZXMoto’s new project, read the full project breakdown and historical context directly over on Visordown.
*Media sourced from KTM, ZXMoto’s Instagram, Arena Motor, Motorbikewriter on YouTube and Harley-Davidson*
