Sydney MC Show. November 2008

Of particular interest was the recently unveiled Casey Stoner tribute Ducati, featuring custom artwork dedicated to the Aussie's 2007 MotoGP title win.

The Stoner tribute has once again been created by the crew at Brown's Grafix, continuing the trend they started with the Aussie Legends Honda and continued last year with the Valentino Rossi tribute R1 Yamaha.

The Stoner bike features the quality finish typical of the Browns Grafix crew, with neat details like race results over the 2007 season documented on the belly fairing. Stoner's Young Australian of the Year and Dawn Fraser Australian Sports Awards are also listed.

Another standout on the Sydney Motorcycle Show stand was Joe Schembri's custom chopper (inset above), which recently won the first ever Australian heat of the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building at Gold Coast Bike Week.

The 2008 Sydney Motorcycle Show will feature a multi-million dollar display of motorcycles, scooters, ATVs, customs & more. The event runs for three big days and features demos from stunt and FMX riders, the second leg of the Australian Custom Bike Championships, National Pogo Championships (sounds intriguing!), a massive apparel sale and much more. For details, go to www.sydneymotorcycleshow.com.au

Japanese makers cut production
The global financial crisis is starting to be felt in the motorcycle industry, with Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki all announcing production cuts in the wake of falling sales in the US and Europe.

Japan's Nikkei Business Daily reported on October 18 that Honda plans to slash production by 10 per cent for the year to March 2009, while Yamaha has lowered its production forecasts by 20 per cent for 250cc or larger bikes at its main factory in Iwata.

Yamaha also plans to trim production in Italy by the end of the year because of sharply falling sales in Europe, the newspaper said.

Suzuki will reduce domestic output of motorcycles by seven per cent amid forecasts sales in the United States will decline some 19 per cent to 100,000 units for the current fiscal year. Japan's motorcycle shipments overseas are projected to decline to below 600,000 units this year, down some 20 per cent from last year or less than one fifth of its output during peaks in the 1980s.

Australian sales up - growth rate down
Australian motorcycle sales have continued to grow in 2008, but a pointer to the potential future of the market was demonstrated with overall growth dropping to five per cent for the year, compared to a 22.3 per cent growth rate only two years ago.

Piaggio leads Aussie scooter market
Despite the doom & gloom, recently released FCAI industry data (September 2008 YTD), show that scooter sales continue to rise in Australia - up 14.5 per cent on 2007 figures. Italian scooter giant, Piaggio, continues to be the number one choice with almost 23% share of the market spread over their Piaggio, Vespa & Gilera brands.