Originally Posted by
Jipe
The first version of the Dahon Curl was presented at the Eurobike 2014, almost eleven years ago!
There were many different versions of the Curl, Dahon I think put a lot of money in this bike but for any reason the commercialization of the Curl has always been limited and chaotic and its availability has always been unpredictable the bike appearing in stock on some online shop and then disappearing/becoming unavailable.
I think that sales were always low but its due to the way Dahon commercialized the Curl, not to the quality of the bike.
The question remain open about why Dahon developed the Curl, put so much effort+money for its development, evolution and marketing, maintain the Curl on its catalog for so many years but limited so much its commercialization?
I wondered the same. Pricewise, I could see folks not biting if a similarly equipped Curl was 1/2 or over Brompton's price (my normal threshold for buying something other than an item of known quality); Besides a reputation for quality, my guess is Brom' gives better customer service than Dahon (not difficult, which says everything). However the D9 looked good to me; Easy to service derailleur gearing and disc brakes. I like the innovative relocation of the front caliper to prevent axle pullout without a thru-axle, though don't like the single sided fork if it limits replacement hub options (I don't know). But again, no clue what it would have sold for in the USA.
Speaking of price, the Dahon Launch D8 seemed to... well... not launch, and I think that was primarily due to... you guessed it... being overpriced.
Speaking of Dahon, it appears their USA headquarters and warehouse is moving, from Olney IL, a small town downstate that is almost all white, median income of USD$28k and per capita income of $16k with 17% below the poverty line (at least housing is probably cheap), to Carlsbad CA, more ethnically diverse, and about triple the mean and per capita incomes and 7% below the poverty line, and for those over age 25, 51% have a bachelor's degree or higher. Median house price about USD$1.3 million. A lot of tech businesses, including being known as the Titanium Valley due to golf industry including 4 club manufacturers. Oh and Carlsbad is right on the Pacific Ocean beachfront. Hmm, with the USA becoming more wealth-friendly by the minute, how much ya wanna bet that Dr. David Hon himself relocates back to the USA? That address would certainly suit him.