Dylan Smith wrote:

On 2006-06-09, Dave Stadt wrote:

Then why did Diamond dump Rotax in favor of Continental.


The Continental engine is much more powerful - 125hp IIRC. That little
85 hp engine was never enough for the Katana. The issue of a very
conservative US market which won't buy anything other than
Lyc/Continental probably didn't help, and as you point out the
lack of decent after sales service in the US just compounded the problem.

It isn't a "conservative US market", it is the lack of an overall better
product. The same was said about Japanese cars in the 70s. Nobody
would ever buy Japanese cars. Well, you don't hear that much now. They
got their act together and made a better product. There is certainly a
time lag as folks catch on to the product being better, but Rotax has
been around long enough to overcome that ... if only they had a better
product.


Matt