The Harley-Davidson and the mango 'connect'

Mango is a seasonal fruit considered to be among the most superior varieties of the fruit in terms of sweetness, richness and flavour. However, very few know that the ‘King of Fruits’ was briefly banned by the United States in 1989 after some consignments infested with fruit flies were found. We bring you the details of how the Indian government then tried to use this ‘rich’ fruit as a sweetener to ride in the Harley Davidson to India.

India’s strategy of charging 60 per cent import duty plus 30 per cent local taxes for luxury vehicles such as Harleys played a key role in preventing the US manufacturer from entering India. The heavy tax duties doubled the cost of Harleys in the country. 

It was in 2007, when US Trade representative Susan Schwab met her Indian counterpart Kamal Nath who agreed to give access to the Harley-Davidson to ride into the Indian market in exchange for the export of Indian mangoes to the US, but still refused to back down on import duty.    

While the deal which used the mango as a sweetener to bring in the premium bikes to India got panned, mangoes were still allowed to enter the United States after a hiatus of 18 long years. Harley Davidson, on the other hand, entered the Indian shores only in 2010 via the completely built units (CBU) route.

Since 2012, Harley-Davidson started assembling motorcycles in India at its CKD (completely-knocked-down) assembly unit in Bawal in Haryana catering only to the market in the country. India is the second country where Harley-Davidson has CKD assembly operations outside the US, after Brazil. 

In 2013, the company announced that it would start building bikes in India in the first quarter of 2014 and the Harley Davidson Street 750 was the first bike to be built in the country by the premium bike maker.

Although, the mango and the Harley trade deal did not pan out then, the Indian customer surely got the sweet deal of owning a premium bike years later.