Other Transportation Equipment Manufacturing (U.S.)

NAICS 2022 code 33699 — a Histometrics rollup primer. NAICS (the North American Industry Classification System) is the standard code system U.S. statistical agencies use to sort businesses by what they make. This "industry" is a five-digit bucket that gathers three quite different six-digit child industries under one roof, and the most useful thing to understand up front is that it is a residual catch-all, not a single market.

---

1. Overview

Code 33699 is where the federal statistics file every powered or pedaled vehicle that does not fit the big transportation codes — not a highway car (NAICS 3361), not an aircraft (3364), not a boat (3366), not a railcar (33651). What is left over splits into three worlds that share almost no customers, factories, or competitors:

• 336991 — Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Parts Manufacturing: Harley-Davidson and a long tail of bicycle and e-bike brands.
• 336992 — Military Armored Vehicle, Tank, and Tank Component Manufacturing: the plants that build the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles, and armored trucks.
• 336999 — All Other Transportation Equipment Manufacturing: the "powersports and personal-transport" economy — all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), side-by-sides, snowmobiles, personal watercraft, golf carts, and race cars.

Why treat them together at all? Because federal data, industry ETFs (exchange-traded funds), and supplier classifications sometimes roll up to this five-digit code, so an investor needs to know what is inside it. But the honest headline is that no company competes across all three children. The only corporate bridges that exist are partial and shrinking: Textron builds armored reconnaissance vehicles in 336992 and E-Z-GO golf carts in 336999, and Polaris straddled 336991 and 336999 until it separated its Indian motorcycle business in February 2026. A tank plant and a golf-cart plant are in the same code the way a bakery and a distillery are both "food and beverage": technically adjacent, economically unrelated.

The practical value of this primer is the contrast — which child is biggest, which is growing, who owns each, and how (or whether) a public-market or private-market investor can actually buy in.

---

2. What's inside — the three children and how they differ

The whole point of a rollup is the comparison, so lead with it. Receipts and worker shares below are computed from our ground-truth federal figures for the level and the three children (see §3); dollar figures are 2022 Economic Census receipts, worker counts are 2023 County Business Patterns.[1][2][3][4]

Read three things off this table:

1. Size runs opposite to headlines. Tanks get the attention, but the biggest child by both revenue and jobs is the unglamorous powersports/golf bucket (336999, roughly half the level). Motorcycles-and-bikes (336991) is the smallest, because U.S. bicycle demand is served almost entirely by imports, not domestic factories (see §3).
2. Two of the three children are the same business; one is alien. 336991 and 336999 are both consumer-cyclical durable goods sold through independent dealers on financed terms — they rise and fall with confidence, interest rates, and tariffs. 336992 is a government defense contractor whose economics (backlog, contract type, program phase) have nothing to do with the consumer cycle.
3. The pay gap confirms it. Average annual pay is roughly $53,000 in 336991, $67,700 in 336999, and $74,800 in 336992 (payroll ÷ employment) — the defense child runs the most capital- and clearance-intensive plants and pays accordingly.[2][3][4]

---

3. How big it is

Our ground-truth federal figures for the whole level, NAICS 33699:

The level totals are just the children added up — with one telling exception. Establishments (429 + 62 + 457 = 948) and employees (8,445 + 11,831 + 20,354 = 40,630) reconcile exactly to the child primers; receipts (~$3.80B + ~$6.88B + ~$9.76B ≈ $20.45B) and payroll (~$0.45B + ~$0.88B + ~$1.38B ≈ $2.71B) match to rounding.[2][3][4] The exception is the firm count: the children report 408 + 38 + 409 = 855 firms, while the level reports 852.[1][2][3][4] Because a firm is counted in every industry where it operates a plant but only once at the parent, that three-firm gap is the arithmetic version of this primer's whole thesis — essentially every company here belongs to exactly one child. Even the Small Business Administration treats them as three separate industries, setting three different employee thresholds for "small": 1,050 in 336991, 1,500 in 336992, and 1,000 in 336999.[5]

Why the concentration numbers look "unconcentrated" — and why that is misleading. The level HHI of 655.8 sits well below the 1,500 line that usually marks a competitive market, and the top-4 share (42.5%) is lower than any individual child's (61.9% in 336999, 65.3% in 336991, 85.1% in 336992). The same inversion holds one rung down: 66.7% at the level versus 69.9%, 82.3%, and 92.8% at the top-8 line in the children.[2][3][4] That is a statistical artifact of blending three unrelated markets: the four leaders in tanks (General Dynamics, BAE, etc.) are not the four leaders in golf carts (Club Car, Textron) or motorcycles (Harley), so pooling them dilutes every leader's share. Where the children's own HHIs are published they are far higher — 2,289 in armored vehicles and 1,229 in powersports, with the figure suppressed altogether for 336991.[2][3][4] Each child is genuinely concentrated within its own market; the level looks fragmented only because you have stapled three separate oligopolies together. Treat the 655.8 as a bookkeeping figure, not a signal that this is an easy market to enter.

The undercount caveat — read before quoting $20.45 billion. This figure measures domestic factory output classified in this code, not what Americans buy in these categories or what these companies are worth. Four big leakages, and they differ by child:

• Imports dwarf domestic production in the consumer children. Roughly 97–99% of bicycles sold in the U.S. are imported (about $1.09 billion of bikes in 2024), and about 99% of assembled golf carts imported in 2024 came from China (~$709 million).[6][7] The U.S. retail bicycle market is many times this entire level's domestic output, though sources disagree sharply on how many times: estimates for 2024 run from roughly $6.6 billion to $14.75 billion depending on methodology.[8][9] Either way, the economic weight of bikes and carts sits in imports, brand, components, and retail — not in U.S. factories.
• The biggest producers book most revenue in other codes. General Dynamics' Combat Systems segment reported $9.246 billion of revenue in 2025 — more than the entire 336992 receipts figure — because it includes European and non-armored lines.[10] Harley-Davidson's motorcycle segment alone reported $3.578 billion in 2025, close to the whole of 336991's domestic shipments, but the two are not comparable: Harley's figure includes overseas sales, parts and apparel.[11] Polaris's Indian motorcycles are classified in 336991 and its boats in 3366, outside 336999.[12] So the corporate footprint is far larger than the code suggests.
• The code boundaries themselves leak. Wheeled military programs straddle the armored/truck line — at least one Joint Light Tactical Vehicle delivery order was classified under NAICS 336212 rather than 336992.[13] On the consumer side, utility side-by-sides sold primarily as farm equipment can be classified as agricultural machinery instead. "NAICS 33699" and "the market for these products" are not the same set.
• The small/individual tail is real but light. Hundreds of tiny, often family- or founder-owned shops — custom bicycle frame builders, sprint-car and race-car chassis makers, Amish buggy builders — populate 336991 and 336999. They add establishment counts but little revenue, and the smallest owner-operators are exactly the kind of activity federal receipts capture least well. Where you see "fragmentation" in the tail, assume the true count of tiny makers is understated even if their dollars are not.

Bottom line: $20.45 billion is a legitimate measure of domestic manufacturing, but the markets these products serve — and the companies that make them — are much larger and mostly live outside this code.

---

4. The investable universe — where the value sits across the children

There is no security that tracks NAICS 33699. You invest in one of three unrelated baskets. Tickers appear here only to locate the securities; this is not investment advice, and current prices, yields, and multiples should be checked live.

336999 — powersports & personal-transport (largest, cleanest public access).

• Polaris (NYSE: PII) — the closest thing to a public powersports pure play; its Off-Road segment (ATVs, RANGER/RZR side-by-sides, snowmobiles) generated $5.71 billion in 2025, about 80% of sales, at a 20.2% segment gross margin, sold through roughly 2,400 independent North American dealers.[12] The cycle has been brutal: company sales fell 20% in 2024, from $8.93 billion to $7.18 billion, and net income dropped from $503 million to $111 million.[14]
• BRP (Nasdaq/TSX: DOOO) — Canadian maker of Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Can-Am off-road vehicles and Sea-Doo personal watercraft; fiscal 2026 revenue about CA$8.4 billion (including boats and three-wheelers outside this code).[15]
• Diversified/minor slices: Textron (TXT) — its Specialized Vehicles unit (E-Z-GO, Cushman) booked $1.33 billion in 2025, but in April 2026 Textron announced its intent to separate the entire Industrial segment by sale or tax-free spin-off.[16][17] Also Honda (HMC), Yamaha (7272), Kawasaki (7012), Deere (DE).
• Private: Club Car (golf-cart leader, carved out of Ingersoll Rand by Platinum Equity in a ~$1.68 billion deal in 2021), Arctic Cat (sold by Textron in April 2025 to an investor group led by former Arctic Cat executive Brad Darling, with production restarted later that year), and a wave of import-based golf-cart/low-speed-vehicle upstarts (Evolution, ICON, Bintelli) that have pushed domestic makers to roughly a third of the U.S. golf-cart market.[7][18][19]

336992 — armored vehicles & tanks (no pure play; institutional/government-owned).

• General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) — the cleanest large-cap proxy via Land Systems (Abrams, Stryker). Combat Systems earned a 14.4% operating margin on $9.246 billion of 2025 revenue and closed the year with $27.2 billion of backlog — but you also buy jets, submarines, and IT.[10]
• Diversified/foreign primes: Oshkosh (OSK), Textron (TXT), UK-listed BAE Systems (BAESY) — which passed its 500th Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle delivery in 2025 against an Army plan for nearly 3,000 — and Germany-listed Rheinmetall (RNMBY); suppliers Leonardo DRS (DRS) (~$3.6 billion revenue, ~79% from the Defense Department), Allison Transmission (ALSN), Honeywell (HON).[20][21] Foreign, often government-linked primes (KNDS, Hanwha, Patria) are also competing for U.S. and allied work in a global armored-vehicle market researchers size at roughly $52 billion in 2025 — a figure spanning many codes and countries, not just U.S. 336992.[22]
• Private / other: AM General (owned by KPS Capital Partners, builds the Humvee and, since a 2023 upset of Oshkosh, the JLTV under a contract worth up to ~$8.66 billion covering as many as 20,682 vehicles), and the government-owned Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio, operated by General Dynamics — where every U.S. Abrams is assembled.[23][24][25]
• Baskets: aerospace-and-defense ETFs (ITA, XAR, PPA) — but these dilute the armored-vehicle theme heavily.

336991 — motorcycles & bicycles (thin public access; mostly private).

• Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) — effectively the only U.S.-listed pure play, an iconic brand with a captive finance arm; it held 34.5% of U.S. registrations above 601cc in 2025, down 2.8 points year over year.[11] Its electric offshoot LiveWire (LVWR) remains sub-scale: $6.1 million of 2025 electric-motorcycle revenue at a negative gross profit, and a combined operating loss near $75 million.[26]
• Fox Factory (FOXF) offers partial component exposure — bicycle products were 22% of 2025 sales, the rest powered vehicles and sporting goods.[27]
• Polaris (PII) has left the category. It completed the separation of Indian Motorcycle and the sale of a majority stake to PE firm Carolwood LP in February 2026, retaining only a minority interest.[28]
• Private: the largest U.S. bicycle brands (Trek, Specialized), component maker SRAM, electric-motorcycle maker Zero, and venture-backed e-bike brands (Rad Power, Lectric, Aventon). There is no pure-play public U.S. bicycle manufacturer.

The pattern: public-market money concentrates in 336999 and (diluted) in 336992; 336991 is nearly all private. Across all three, private and PE capital is the increasingly common owner (Platinum/Club Car, the Darling group/Arctic Cat, KPS/AM General, Carolwood/Indian) — and the diversified public parents are the sellers.

---

5. How the money works

Because the level is two economic engines wearing one code, describe both.

Engine A — consumer dealer-channel manufacturing (336991 + 336999). These are cyclical makers of big-ticket, discretionary durables. The levers:

• Units × average selling price, and mix. Revenue is volume times price; shifting toward premium, accessorized machines lifts both. A basic golf cart runs a few thousand dollars; a loaded side-by-side or touring motorcycle runs well past $30,000.
• Capacity utilization and fixed-cost leverage. Plants carry heavy fixed costs, so gross margin swings hard with volume. Polaris's Off-Road gross margin fell to 20.2% in 2025 from 21.9% in 2023 as volumes dropped and discounting rose; Harley shipped 124,500 motorcycles in 2025, 16% fewer than in 2024, and its motorcycle-segment gross margin compressed from 28.0% to 24.2% while operating margin swung from +6.7% to −0.8%.[12][14][11]
• The dealer channel and floorplan finance. Makers sell wholesale to independent dealers, who hold inventory on "floorplan" loans. This moves product in good times but creates channel gluts that force production cuts and promotions when retail slows — the defining 2024–25 dynamic in both powersports and Harley motorcycles.[12][14][11]
• Aftermarket — parts, garments, and accessories (PG&A) — and captive credit. Higher-margin, recurring revenue cushions the hardware cycle. The credit arm can do more than cushion: Harley reported $339 million of consolidated net income in 2025 even though its motorcycle segment lost $29 million at the operating line, because Harley-Davidson Financial Services had an unusually strong year.[11] Neither consumer child is a clean manufacturing exposure.
• The bicycle value trap. Most U.S. bike "manufacturers" are really designers and assemblers; the fabrication margin flows to Asian contract factories and the drivetrain duopoly (Japan's Shimano, the U.S.'s SRAM), not to the brand.

Engine B — government-contract defense manufacturing (336992). Entirely different metrics: backlog, contract type, program phase, and sustainment.

• One customer, long contracts. Nearly all revenue is government procurement — the U.S. Army/Marine Corps plus allied buyers via Foreign Military Sales (FMS), government-to-government deals brokered by the Pentagon. Funded backlog is the key visibility metric: General Dynamics ended 2025 with $27.2 billion in Combat Systems, after $9.2 billion of combined wheeled- and tracked-vehicle awards for international customers.[10]
• Contract type sets the margin. Development is usually cost-plus (reimbursed costs plus a fee — lower risk, lower margin); production is often fixed-price (the maker keeps savings but eats overruns — a real hazard when inflation hits a multi-year deal). $8.131 billion of Combat Systems' $9.246 billion in 2025 revenue was fixed-price, which is why cost execution, not demand, is the segment's swing factor.[10]
• Sustainment is the annuity. The Abrams entered service in 1980; today's tank revenue is upgrades and rebuilds, not new hulls — a recent five-year Abrams support contract runs to roughly $716 million — and "warm" production lines are themselves a political goal.[29]

The shared thread across both engines is that the whole level is cyclical — but to different clocks. Engine A rises and falls with the consumer cycle; Engine B with the defense-budget and threat cycle. Both also insert a buffer between reported revenue and current demand — dealer floorplan on one side, funded backlog on the other — so reported results can lag the turn in either direction. They can easily move opposite ways in the same year, which is precisely why the blended level tells you little.

---

6. What drives demand

Consumer children (336991, 336999):

• Confidence, income, and interest rates. These are optional, mostly financed purchases, so demand tracks the consumer cycle; rising rates cooled both motorcycle and powersports demand into 2024–25.
• Demographics (motorcycles). The core U.S. rider base is aging — median owner age reached about 50 by 2018, up from 32 in 1990 — a structural headwind unless makers recruit younger, more diverse riders.[30]
• Rural, agricultural, and work use (powersports). Side-by-sides and ATVs are genuine tools on farms and job sites — a steadier base than pure recreation, and the reason the mix has tilted decisively toward multi-seat utility machines: Polaris estimates 2025 North American retail of 525,000 side-by-sides against 255,000 ATVs.[12]
• Weather. Snowmobiles are a winter business, and a run of poor seasons shows up fast: worldwide snowmobile retail fell from roughly 125,000 units in the season ended March 2023 to about 90,000 in the season ended March 2025.[12]
• The two clear growth vectors: e-bikes and neighborhood golf carts. Electric bikes are the fastest-growing slice of cycling — roughly 7% of U.S. bicycle units but about 30% of bicycle revenue, with nearly a million bought or sold in 2024 — and golf carts are moving off the course into street-legal neighborhood transport, aided by cheaper lithium batteries.[8][31] Both are structural tailwinds; both lean heavily on imports.

Defense child (336992):

• Defense budgets — U.S. and allied — are the master switch, and they are not uniformly rising. The Army's fiscal 2026 request included $2.887 billion for Weapons and Tracked Combat Vehicles, below the $3.689 billion continuing-resolution baseline that preceded it.[32]
• Threat environment. Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered European recapitalization and a U.S. obligation to replenish equipment sent to Ukraine — the Army is buying about 50 additional Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles for roughly $250 million to backfill transferred M113 carriers.[33]
• Fleet obsolescence and doctrine shifts. Aging platforms create decades of modernization work; lessons from Ukraine (cheap drones killing expensive armor) are pushing demand toward protection systems, counter-drone kit, and lighter/uncrewed vehicles.

---

7. Regulation

Again, split by engine.

Consumer children — product safety, emissions, and (increasingly) trade:

• Product safety. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) sets a mandatory bicycle standard (16 CFR Part 1512) and a mandatory ATV standard; side-by-sides run on a mostly voluntary standard, with off-highway vehicles tied to more than 800 deaths and roughly 100,000 emergency-room injuries a year — a persistent liability overhang.[34] On the cycling side, lithium-battery fires have become the live regulatory front: in June 2026 the CPSC approved publication of a proposed mandatory battery-safety standard for micromobility products.[35]
• Road-legality. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's FMVSS No. 500 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard for Low-Speed Vehicles) defines what turns a golf cart into a street-legal neighborhood vehicle — 20–25 mph, under 3,000 lb gross weight, with lights, mirrors, belts and a VIN. It is the rule that makes the fastest-growing golf-cart market possible.[36]
• Emissions. The EPA and California's Air Resources Board (CARB) regulate motorcycle and small-engine exhaust, part of the push toward electric drivetrains.[37]
• Trade and tariffs — the fast-moving, cross-cutting force. Chinese bikes and e-bikes carry Section 301 tariffs that spiked sharply in 2025 before partial rollbacks, with lithium-battery duties scheduled to rise to 25% in 2026 and the de minimis exemption for low-value parcels closed; the Commerce Department imposed antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese low-speed golf carts in 2024–25, with preliminary margins running into the hundreds of percent.[38][7] The pressure runs in both directions and reaches domestic assemblers too: Harley absorbed roughly $67 million of new or increased tariff costs in 2025, and BRP suspended its fiscal 2027 guidance after a 25% tariff was applied to imported snowmobiles and most off-road models.[11][39] Because the consumer children are so import-exposed, trade policy is now a first-order variable for their pricing.

Defense child — governed by being the government's supplier: the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and its defense supplement (DFARS) control how contracts are competed and audited; the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) govern exports; Buy-American provisions and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) requirements run down the supply chain; and foreign-owned producers (BAE, Leonardo DRS) operate under Special Security Agreements overseen by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to hold facility clearances.

---

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

Each child has its own structure and its own consolidation story:

• 336991 is deconsolidating and going private. Polaris completed the sale of its Indian motorcycle brand to PE (Carolwood) in February 2026, removing a public competitor; Harley's EV bet stays sub-scale and loss-making; bicycles consolidate globally into a few brand houses sitting atop Asian contract factories and the Shimano/SRAM component duopoly.[28][26] The blended child statistics look concentrated (top-4 65.3%) only because a few motorcycle assemblers dominate the domestic dollars while hundreds of small bike makers contribute little revenue.[2]
• 336992 is a tight, high-barrier oligopoly (top-4 85.1%, HHI 2,289 — the most concentrated of the three, and only 38 firms in the whole child).[3] Post-Cold-War consolidation left a handful of primes; barriers (capital, security clearances, government-owned tooling, one dominant buyer) are enormous. The live dynamics are foreign primes pushing in (Rheinmetall's U.S. arm, KNDS, Hanwha) and winner-take-most competitions — a single award, like AM General's 2023 JLTV upset of Oshkosh, can reshuffle the field.[22][24]
• 336999 is a duopoly-plus (top-4 61.9%, HHI 1,229): Polaris and BRP anchor off-road/snow, with import-based upstarts disrupting golf carts on price — the very thing that triggered the 2024–25 trade cases.[4][7] Consolidation here is episodic portfolio reshuffling (Textron bought Arctic Cat in 2017 and sold it in 2025; Platinum carved Club Car out of Ingersoll Rand in 2021).[16][18][19]

One pattern does cross the children, and it is new: diversified public parents are exiting these businesses. Polaris separated Indian in February 2026; Textron sold Arctic Cat in 2025 and in April 2026 announced its intent to separate the whole Industrial segment, E-Z-GO included.[28][17][19] The buyers are private equity and founder groups. If that continues, the publicly investable slice of this level gets thinner, not thicker.

And at the level: the low HHI (655.8) and CR4 (42.5%) do not mean this is a competitive, easy-entry market. They mean the code pools three separate concentrated markets whose leaders never overlap. Use child-level concentration, not level-level, to judge any single business.

---

9. Risks

• Cyclicality and interest rates (consumer children). Big-ticket, financed demand falls fast when confidence or credit tightens; fixed factory costs magnify the earnings swing. The 2024–25 destocking cut Polaris's sales 20% and its net income by nearly four-fifths in a single year, and pushed Harley's motorcycle segment to an operating loss.[14][11]
• Demographic decline (motorcycles). An aging rider base and weak youth recruitment threaten the core market's long-run volume.[30]
• Import dependence and tariff whiplash (bikes, e-bikes, golf carts). With most units imported, sudden tariff changes swing landed costs and retail prices; duties cut both ways — protective on golf-cart imports, punitive on components and exports — and they hit domestic assemblers as well as importers.[7][38][11][39]
• Defense budget and program-cancellation risk (armored). The Army's 2025 Army Transformation Initiative killed the M10 Booker light tank after more than $1 billion spent and 26 vehicles delivered against a contract contemplating up to 96; the FY2026 tracked-vehicle request came in below the prior baseline.[40][32] A single doctrine shift can erase a market.
• Single-customer concentration (armored). One buyer, lumpy and politically driven revenue, fixed-price cost exposure, bid protests and recompetes.[10]
• Electrification transition (all three). Electric motorcycles remain loss-making — LiveWire's EV segment lost $73.8 million at the operating line in 2025 — and BRP booked roughly CA$233 million of impairment on electric-vehicle and light-mobility assets in fiscal 2026. Electrification is not automatically value-creating in these categories.[26][15]
• Concentration risk for public investors. For 336991, U.S. public exposure is essentially one company (Harley) — and that company's 2025 profit came from its credit arm, not its factories; for 336992, there is no pure play at all.[11]
• Weather and product liability round out the consumer-side exposures (poor snow seasons cut snowmobile retail by roughly a quarter over two years; rollover and recall risk is permanent across powersports and motorcycles).[12][34]

---

10. How to invest, and the outlook

The single most important point: you cannot invest in "33699." It is an accounting bucket. Choose the child whose economics you actually want.

Public routes, by child:

• Powersports (336999): Polaris (PII) and BRP (DOOO) for near-pure exposure; Textron, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Deere for diluted slices — with the caveat that Textron intends to separate the segment that holds E-Z-GO.[17] No U.S.-listed pure-play golf-cart company exists — Club Car is private, E-Z-GO sits inside Textron for now.
• Armored vehicles (336992): General Dynamics (GD) as the best large-cap proxy; BAE (BAESY) and Rheinmetall (RNMBY) as foreign-listed purer plays; Leonardo DRS/Allison/Honeywell for the supply chain; defense ETFs (ITA, XAR, PPA) for theme-diluted baskets.
• Motorcycles (336991): Harley-Davidson (HOG), with LiveWire (LVWR) as a small speculative EV bet and Fox Factory (FOXF) as partial component exposure. That is essentially the whole public menu.[27]

Private routes are where much of the value lives across all three: PE and founder ownership (Platinum/Club Car, the Darling group/Arctic Cat, KPS/AM General, Carolwood/Indian), the large private bicycle and e-bike brands, import-based golf-cart upstarts, dealership roll-ups and floorplan finance, defense component and sustainment suppliers, and venture-stage armor-protection, counter-drone, and autonomy startups. Because the two consumer children are earnings-cyclical, weigh valuation on normalized (mid-cycle) profits, dealer-inventory health, and aftermarket resilience rather than a single trough or peak year.

Outlook — three divergent stories, not one.

1. Powersports (336999): cyclical recovery potential as the dealer channel cleans up and rates ease, layered over a genuine structural tailwind — street-legal neighborhood golf carts and electrification — offset by weather, tariffs, and import price competition.[31][39]
2. Armored vehicles (336992): a well-supported backlog ($27.2 billion at General Dynamics' Combat Systems) from Ukraine-driven replenishment and allied rearmament, but with the domestic procurement line flat-to-down and value migrating from new heavy platforms toward upgrades, protection systems, and the electronics that keep older hulls survivable — plus real program-cancellation risk from the Army's lighter/uncrewed pivot.[10][32][40]
3. Motorcycles & bikes (336991): a mature, demographically challenged domestic motorcycle business now shipping fewer units and leaning on its finance arm for profit, with a structurally growing but import-dependent, tariff-exposed e-bike layer on top.[11][8][38]

The unifying takeaway: the level is a label, not a thesis. Its usefulness is as a map of three separate opportunities — largest and most investable in powersports, most concentrated and government-driven in armor, and smallest and increasingly private in motorcycles and bikes.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census (receipts, firms, concentration ratios, HHI) and County Business Patterns 2023 (establishments, employment, payroll), NAICS 33699. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census / County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 336991 (receipts ~$3.80B; 408 firms; 429 establishments; 8,445 employees; ~$447.2M payroll; CR4 65.3%, CR8 69.9%; HHI suppressed). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census / County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 336992 (receipts ~$6.88B; 38 firms; 62 establishments; 11,831 employees; $884.6M payroll ≈ $74,800/worker; CR4 85.1%, CR8 92.8%, HHI 2,289). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census / County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 336999 (receipts $9.76B; 409 firms; 457 establishments; 20,354 employees; $1.38B payroll ≈ $67,700/worker; CR4 61.9%, CR8 82.3%, HHI 1,229). https://data.census.gov/profile/336999_-_All_other_transportation_equipment_manufacturing?n=336999
5. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (336991 = 1,050 employees; 336992 = 1,500; 336999 = 1,000), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
6. IndexBox, United States Bicycle Market Overview 2024 (~97–99% of bikes imported; ~$1.09B imported in 2024). https://www.indexbox.io/blog/bicycle-united-states-market-overview-2024-6/
7. CNBC, Trump's trade war hits his second-favorite set of wheels, the golf cart (2024 golf-cart imports ~$709M, ~99% from China; antidumping/countervailing duties on Chinese low-speed personal transportation vehicles), 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/tariffs-target-trumps-second-favorite-set-of-wheels-the-golf-cart.html
8. PeopleForBikes, Electric Bicycle Market Insights / The U.S. E-Bike Market Is Bigger Than the Numbers Show (retail bike market ~$6.6B; ~1 million e-bikes bought or sold in 2024; ~7% of units and ~30% of bicycle revenue), 2024. https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/e-bike-market-bigger-than-numbers-show
9. Grand View Research, U.S. Bike Market Size, Share, Growth (retail market ~$14.75B, 2024). https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-bike-market-report
10. General Dynamics, Form 10-K, FY2025 (Combat Systems $9.246B revenue, 14.4% margin, $4.970B military vehicles, $8.131B fixed-price, $27.2B backlog, $9.2B international awards). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40533/000004053326000006/gd-20251231.htm
11. Harley-Davidson, Inc., Form 10-K, FY2025 and Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results (HDMC revenue $3.578B, −13%; 124,500 shipments, −16%; gross margin 28.0%→24.2%; $339M consolidated net income vs. $29M HDMC operating loss; ~$67M tariff costs; 34.5% of U.S. 601cc+ registrations). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793952/000079395226000011/hog-20251231.htm
12. Polaris Inc., Form 10-K, FY2025 (Off-Road segment $5.71B, ~80% of sales, 20.2% gross margin; ~2,400 North American dealers; snowmobile retail 125,000 → 90,000 units; 525,000 side-by-sides vs. 255,000 ATVs; segment classification). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/931015/000162828026008033/pii-20251231.htm
13. USAspending.gov, JLTV award record (delivery order classified under NAICS 336212 rather than 336992). https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_W56HZV23F0081_9700_W56HZV23D0008_9700
14. Polaris Inc., Form 10-K, FY2024 (2024 sales $8.93B → $7.18B; net income $503M → $111M; Off-Road gross margin 21.9% in 2023; dealer floorplan financing). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/931015/000162828025006009/pii-20241231.htm
15. BRP Inc., Fiscal 2026 Results (revenue ~CA$8.4B; ~CA$233M electric-vehicle and light-mobility impairment charges), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1748797/000119312526125052/d97540dex991.htm
16. Textron Inc., 2025 Annual Report (Textron Specialized Vehicles $1.33B revenue; E-Z-GO, Cushman). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000217346/000155278126000093/e26090_txt-ars.pdf
17. Textron Inc., news release — intent to separate the Industrial segment (including E-Z-GO) by sale or tax-free separation, April 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/217346/000021734626000009/a043026pressrelease.htm
18. Platinum Equity / Ingersoll Rand SEC filing, Club Car acquisition for ~$1.68 billion, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1699150/000114036121012485/brhc10023015_8k.htm
19. Arctic Cat, Renewal. Passion. Generations to Come. (April 2025 acquisition by an investor group led by Brad Darling; production restart), 2025. https://www.arcticcat.com/about-arctic-cat/news/renewal-passion-generations-come
20. BAE Systems, 2025 Full Year Results (AMPV 500th delivery; Army plan for nearly 3,000 vehicles). https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/article/2025-full-year-results
21. Leonardo DRS, Inc., Form 10-K FY2024 / 2025 results (~$3.6B revenue, ~79% from the Defense Department; Abrams/Bradley electro-optics). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1833756/000162828025009248/drs-20241231.htm
22. MarketsandMarkets, Armored Vehicles Market — Size, Share & Industry Forecast (~$51.6B in 2025; key players BAE, General Dynamics, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall, KNDS, Hanwha), 2025. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/armored-vehicle-market-6322755.html
23. KPS Capital Partners, AM General investment, 2020–2025. https://kpsfund.com/investments/am-general/
24. Breaking Defense, AM General wins Army's JLTV recompete (award up to ~$8.66B with options; up to 20,682 vehicles), 2023. https://breakingdefense.com/2023/02/am-general-wins-armys-jltv-recompete-contract-valued-up-to-7-3-billion/
25. U.S. Army TACOM, Joint Systems Manufacturing Center — Lima (government-owned, contractor-operated Abrams plant). https://tacom.army.mil/jsmc-lima
26. LiveWire Group, Inc., Form 10-K, FY2025 ($6.1M electric-motorcycle revenue at negative gross profit; $73.8M segment operating loss; ~$75M combined operating loss). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1898795/000189879526000028/lvwr-20251231.htm
27. Fox Factory Holding Corp., Form 10-K, FY2025 (22% of 2025 sales from bicycle products). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1424929/000142492926000012/foxf-20260102.htm
28. Polaris Inc., Polaris Completes Separation of Indian Motorcycle and Sale of Majority Stake to Carolwood LP (February 2026). https://ir.polaris.com/files/doc_news/Polaris-Completes-Separation-of-Indian-Motorcycle-and-Sale-of-Majority-Stake-to-Carolwood-LP-2026.pdf
29. GovConWire, Army Awards $716M Contract to General Dynamics Land Systems for Abrams Support, 2025. https://www.govconwire.com/articles/gdls-army-contract-abrams-tanks-support
30. CSM Research / Riders-Share, The Aging Rider Crisis (median motorcycle-owner age ~50 by 2018, up from 32 in 1990), 2026. https://www.csm-research.com/the-aging-rider-crisis-how-demographic-shifts-are-reshaping-motorcycle-market-strategies/
31. Grand View Research, U.S. Electric Golf Cart Market Size (street-legal low-speed-vehicle growth; neighborhood cart lanes), 2024. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-electric-golf-cart-market-report
32. U.S. Army, FY26 President's Budget Highlights ($2.887B for Weapons and Tracked Combat Vehicles vs. $3.689B continuing-resolution baseline). https://www.asafm.army.mil/Portals/72/Documents/BudgetMaterial/2026/pbr/FY26%20Presidents%20Budget%20Highlights.pdf
33. The Defense Post, US Army to Buy 50 Additional AMPVs to Replenish Ukraine Drawdown (~$250M; FY2026), 2026. https://thedefensepost.com/2026/03/03/us-army-ampvs/
34. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 16 CFR Part 1512 (Bicycles), Standard for All-Terrain Vehicles, and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles (voluntary ANSI/ROHVA standard; >800 OHV deaths and ~100,000 emergency-room injuries a year). https://www.cpsc.gov/Regulations-Laws--Standards/Voluntary-Standards/Recreational-Off-Highway-Vehicles
35. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Statement on CPSC's Proposed Lithium-ion Battery Safety Standard for Micromobility Products (June 2026). https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Chairman/Peter-A-Feldman/Statement/Statement-of-Acting-Chairman-Peter-A-Feldman-on-CPSCs-Proposed-Lithium-ion-Battery-Safety-Standard-for-Micromobility-Products
36. U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, FMVSS No. 500 — Low-Speed Vehicles (49 CFR 571.500; 20–25 mph, GVWR under 3,000 lb, required safety equipment). https://www.motoelectricvehicles.com/federal-motor-vehicle-safety-standards-no-500/
37. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Regulations for Emissions from Motorcycles; California Air Resources Board, On-Road Motorcycles. https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/regulations-emissions-motorcycles-light-duty
38. PeopleForBikes, Bike Industry Update on Tariffs 2025 (Section 301 tariff swings; 2026 lithium-battery duty increase; de minimis closure). https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/bike-industry-update-on-tariffs-2025
39. BRP Inc., BRP Suspends FY27 Guidance Due to Changes in U.S. Tariff Environment (25% tariff on imported snowmobiles and most off-road vehicles), 2026. https://investisseurs.brp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/brp-suspends-fy27-guidance-due-changes-us-tariff-environment
40. U.S. Army, Army to Cease Procurement of M10 Booker Combat Vehicles (Army Transformation Initiative; >$1B spent, 26 delivered, up to 96 contemplated), 2025. https://www.army.mil/article/286271/army_to_cease_procurement_of_m10_booker_combat_vehicles