2008 Victory Vision Touring

Before I laid eyes on it and spent four days touring with it, the Victory Vision wasn’t on my short list of “must rides.” But all of the preconceptions I had – that the bike’s styling was too futuristic, it wouldn’t handle well in curves and the V-twin motor would produce too much vibration for comfortable long-distance touring – proved to be invalid.

Styling

As my friend Jeff and I stopped for a break while riding in East Texas, two young ladies walked by our parked motorcycles. Pointing at Jeff's 1990 Honda Transalp, the first one said, "Wow, that's a neat bike." The other responded, "Sure, it is – but look at this one," indicating the Victory Vision, "it's bad to the bone!" Styling and curb appeal, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. Those who love the Vision's styling really love it and those who don't – really don't. And short-lived though they were, all of my encounters with Vision gawkers took place with the "love it" crowd.

The Vision's styling is often referred to as futuristic, but it's actually futuristic and retro. In the 1930s and '40s, art deco design and an offshoot style called "streamlining" were all the rage for a wide variety of objects. Compare the Vision to pictures of the 1934 Chrysler Airflow or streamliner trains of that era and the similarities in many of the design cues are obvious....

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