News and Stories from the Road

2008 VICTORY^® VISION™ DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

The all-new Victory Vision represents the largest new-model development program not only in Victory history, but also in the 50-plus year history of parent company Polaris Industries Inc.

It was more than six years ago that the seeds of the Victory Vision project were sewn. Provided to the media by Victory, here is a timeline of some of the significant milestones and steps of the new models' development process.

2000: Victory conducts research into the segments of the cruiser motorcycle market where it does not yet compete. In particular, research is begun in earnest on what would be required to enter the luxury-touring segment.

2000: The Visteon Vision is created. Visteon, a leading electronics supplier, especially to the automotive industry, asks Victory to design a concept bike on which Visteon can feature some of its most advanced technology. Victory Industrial Designer Mike Song styles the Visteon Vision, and Visteon has the concept bike built, with a Victory V92C serving as the rolling chassis. The bike is displayed in the Victory Store at Sturgis in 2001 and generates a highly favorable response.

JANUARY 2004, GATE 1: In the Polaris/Victory vehicle development process, a new-vehicle project must pass through "gates" of corporate approval for the project to remain viable. At Gate 1, the Victory team needed to convince Polaris executives that the luxury-touring project was worth pursuing - that there was a strong market for such a vehicle and that Victory
could successfully create a competitive vehicle. The project receives approval.

BENCHMARKING & RESEARCH WORK: With project funding provided through the Gate 1 approval, the Victory team purchases several touring and luxury-touring motorcycles and completely analyzes every aspect of each bike. Team members ride the bikes extensively across the United States and technicians disassemble them to discern more about their engineering, components and materials. Meanwhile, additional market research is ongoing and includes conducting focus groups to learn what riders like, dislike, use, want and dream of from their motorcycles, especially touring and luxury-touring models.

FEBRUARY 2004: The first test mule is created so the Victory engineering team can evaluate and confirm the stability of the design.

STYLING AND A CLAY MODEL: Input from engineering and marketing is reviewed with the Industrial Design team and styling directions are agreed upon. Concept drawings are created and approved, and a full-sized clay model of the Victory Vision is created. It is built on a substantial frame so Polaris executives can actually sit on the model at the Gate 2 project review.

JULY 2004, GATE 2: The Victory team presents additional market research information, their vision of the Victory luxury touring bike, their early findings from testing with the mule and the clay model to company executives. The executives greenlight the project, meaning the team receives funding to continue development of the bike - which includes the Next generation
Freedom engine.

PROTOTYPES & DEVELOPMENT: Extensive sophisticated vehicular analysis is conducted on computers without any rubber ever hitting the road. The analysis allows Victory engineers to learn a great deal about the bike's structural design - what will and won't work, what will provide a great ride and what won't - before the first prototype model is created. A series of prototypes and development bikes are built and evaluated both on the road and on advanced test equipment such as the Vehicle Dynamics Simulator. The road testing is covert: It is conducted at a secure test facility, at night on public roads or on bikes with unidentifiable bodywork and no Victory badges.

SEPTEMBER 2004: The first Victory Vision with a cast airbox is created. This represents a step from the early tube-frame test mule to test units built with the cast airbox, which evolves during the development process and is used on the production models.

AUGUST 2005, PRE-PRODUCTION BUILDS: Starting with a build conducted in August 2005, a series of small-volume pre-production builds are conducted at the Victory final assembly facility in Spirit Lake, Iowa. This allows the engineers and development technicians to see how near-production components fit and perform. It also gives the Spirit Lake team the opportunity to get familiar with the bikes' makeup and assembly challenges. One or more bikes from each such build are run through extensive follow-up testing to determine whether the latest generation of components produce any alterations in performance or reliability.

APRIL 2006: The first Victory Vision with complete bodywork is built. The Victory Vision represents the largest use of plastic bodywork ever in any Victory or Polaris vehicle, even greater than Polaris ATVs and RANGER utility vehicles.

DECEMBER 2006: The motorcycle media gets its fi rst look at, and chance to sit on the Victory Vision Tour and Victory Vision Street at a Victory press reception held in Long Beach, California. Bikes are on display only, and few details are announced. None of the information or photos may be published nor posted online until after the Victory Vision introduction in January 2007.

JANUARY 19, 2007: The Victory Vision is introduced at the International Motorcycle Show in New York City. The Victory Vision Tour and Victory Vision Street are displayed at several subsequent IMS events through the winter.

MAY 2007: Riders are invited to reserve a 2008 Victory Vision by registering on the Victory website, then visiting their Victory dealer to place a deposit on their bike.

MAY 2007: The first Victory Vision with an official VIN - vehicle identifi cation number - is assembled at the Spirit Lake facility. Immediately after its assembly, it is ridden approximately 229 miles to the Product Development Center in Wyoming, Minnesota.

JUNE 2007: Members of the motorcycle media attend the Victory Vision press launch and get to ride the new models for the first time. Their first ride takes them from the Wyoming, Minnesota, Product Development Center where much of the bikes' development work was conducted, to Spirit Lake, Iowa, site of the Victory final assembly facility where all Victory Motorcycles are built. They later ride from Spirit Lake back to the Twin Cities.

FALL 2007:Victory Vision production is scheduled to begin.