Confederate Motorcycles changes their name because of loss of business

The story is here.

https://rideapart.com/articles/confederate-motorcycles-swaps-name-motors

and here in these links.

http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2017/08/31/confederate-motorcycles-changing-name-and-going-electric.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-confederate-zero-deal-20170818-story.html

Confederate Motorcycles is changing its name to Curtiss Motorcycle. The business was founded in 1991 and evidently the owner Matt Chambers thought then that the name was a good idea.

The article explains "Chambers told the Los Angeles Times" that the company was losing business because of the name.  The article says that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were customers.

I wonder how well a 3rd Reich Motorcycle Company would be received. It says a lot about society and his customer base that not until 2017, 26 years after the founding, did Chambers feel he had to change the name.

This is a good development. All these things, street names, merchandise, monuments, etc. are mutually reinforcing since as an aggregate they normalize themselves. As the aggregate is reduced the remaining items are less normalized

However, for prestige goods, which a motorcycle costing over a $100,000 would be, these items in particular normalize the Confederacy since at their price it states that people with a lot of money are purchasing these items. The article lists a motorcycle on sale at $150,000.

It is also significant that among upper social strata in the United States acceptability for Confederate things is finally diminishing. It is also of interest that the name didn't change in 2015.

In the Los Angeles Times article Chambers says "We've missed out on branding opportunities." I think the problem is that that his business was getting branding, as a motorcycle for persons that really don't care that black lives matter in history.