Anyone know what's happening ????

Hi to you all my brothers & sisters out in the SlingShot world.

Those of you that know me, will also know that I am one of the few SlingShot owners in the UK. I have now been the proud owner of a SlingShot, for just over one year, at the time of publishing this post.

I love this thrilling machine. It surely is a unique vehicle, in Britain.

I was looking on the UK Facebook page for our wonderful machines recently and noticed a strange thing.
- polarisslingshotuk -

It looks like they have not posted anything on this page after January 2017.

When I purchased my SlingShot, last year, I established that I was prohably only 1 of 6 owners of this type of vheical in the UK & Ireland. One year later and I know of 2 more sales that have been made.

--- MY QUESTION ---
It all went a little like this with the Polaris Victory range, before they turned production off.
Does anyone know if they are closing the UK supply & outlets down ???

I just checked out a little more info, relating to the number of SlingShot a in the UK.

Quarter
Licensed
SORN

The above shows how many SlingShots we now have imported into the UK. (Looks like I can't format the table on my smartphone)

Notes:
The figures are cumulative. We have no more than 16 imported.
I understand that an addtional SS is also in the UK. This is marked in the statistics as "missing." (I undertand that may be a U.S. vehical on American licences plates, on a U.S. Air Base, in the east of the country).
SORN stands for: "Statutory Off Road Notification." This is a legal requirement for all vheicals sold in the UK and not registers for use, on the road.

The members of this forum that Know me, know that I won't let this sort of thing go.

This time last year Polaris had a total of 5 outlets, owned by 4 dealers.

I knew that one had stopped all its dealings with Polaris, in Q1 2017. I knew another was going up for sale, in Q2 2917. That one has now gone into liquidation.

That would only give the UK market 3 outlets and 2 dealers now.

Now things get even worse. If the main website is checked of the dealer that owns the two outlets and the link is followed to the Polaris section.
- www.khslingshot.co.uk -
THE LINK IS BROKEN.

The one remaining distributor does have a link through to a page of prices for the 2016 model. However I have no trust in this guy as he passed (basic, but still restricted) information about about someone he was doing busses with at my local Army camp, just up the road from my home, in Hereford. I think he thought it made him look big. (Try googling it - You don't pass on anything about them - Not even names, positions or ranks).

SO...
That looks like the UK is now totally stuffed !!

BUT...
I'll be part of a very, very exclusive bunch now.

Quote from MACAWS

I found this on line looking for dealers

map-view

Yes that looks just fine but those are the very ones that I'm talking about.

If the link is followed from that page you get a generic Polaris sales page, set up for the dealer.

The Rocket - centre : In liquidation

Krazy Hourse (2 outlets) : Broken link

All-4 Power: Only the generic link (but see my comment in my last posting). Last Twitter posting September 2016 - the same date that they incorporated the company that would sell the SlingShot.

looks like France (with a smaller population) has 20 outlets.

Quote from WOLF

I have no clue what's going on over there. I hope you can still get service if needed. Being one of sixteen is pretty frick'n' cool though.

I gess that it is near the 1 in 10 mark, as I know of a couple that are wrapped up in cotton wool and Polaris UK have some still.

Today I unearthed some good news.

It appears that the broken link at the distributor mentioned above is just that, a broken link. The dealer has just sold 2 new SlingShots in the past week and taken the last UK one from Polaris UK, into the London branch. So it is safe to assume that all 16 of the UK models will eventually make it onto the roads over here.

Completely separate to the above. We have not received any new SlingShots in Europe since the 2016 models were imported. It appears that the European supply of SlingShots will remain cut off for the first three quarters of 2018.

Polaris will attempt sell off all the remaining 2016 models in Europe and then replace them with the 2018 (or possibly the 2019) versions, late next year.

So it looks like things are not as bad as they may have first looked and the SlingShot will remain a very rare beast on the roads of Europe, for a little longer.

With all of this happening it makes me wonder what changes we will all see in the 2019 models.

Quote from UK_Paul

... The dealer has just sold 2 new SlingShots in the past week and taken the last UK one from Polaris UK, into the London branch. So it is safe to assume that all 16 of the UK models will eventually make it onto the roads over here.

Update:

It appears that 1 of the above 16 has not been registered, for use on British roads, so it looks like we will only see 15 on our roads, untill we get the 2019 models arrive.