It was interesting reading about Eric Sulley in last month’s BDN. Even at 95 years old, I still do well remember the vibrant Eric. He didn’t cause us any grief, but certainly kept us on our toes all those years ago. The great challenge was market share. Honda was always top, which caused us some concern.
I said to Peter Agg, “We have to beat Honda’s registration figures”, and he agreed it would be a great thing to do. We did it by reducing our prices and the delivery charge, and re-organising our dealer network. Within two months, we were number one on registrations – much to Eric’s great concern. He thought we were fiddling the books. Unlike Honda, we did not favour our bigger dealers with extra discounts or lower prices. Much to our amazement, the formula worked, and we had top registrations for three months. Eric was cross and concerned and tried all sorts of things to beat us. He was a likeable character and did an awful lot of good for the motorcycle trade back in the 70s and 80s. He, of course, followed on from Jim Harrison, who handed him Honda on a plate.
As I say, a very likeable character. On one occasion, I well remember he said to me: “Maurice, let’s take a few of the dealers out to dinner tonight”. I agreed and we met up at some classy place and sat down for the evening meal. Before we started Eric said “I will buy the food you buy the drinks”. When the wine waiter arrived, I asked Eric what he wanted. He said, “I only drink the best champagne.” It was £65 a bottle! He was a crafty bugger!
There were a number of occasions when we crossed swords, we had our dislikes and likes, but nevertheless we both sold a lot of bikes and had a lot of fun doing it. Eric was a very likeable rogue.
Maurice Knight
Former Suzuki sales director