The powersports industry continues to grapple with volatile market conditions including rising prices, falling sales, waning consumer demand and a rapidly changing compliance landscape, but there are some lenders and dealers who have proven themselves resilient.
Auto Finance News today announced 11 powersports executives to watch heading into 2026 who have thus far proven their ability to support lenders, dealers and consumers in a political and economic climate that is also rapidly changing.
Dealers and lenders are leaning into the used market to drive sales and overall growth in the fourth quarter and heading into next year. In fact, manufacturers including Harley-Davidson are pushing certified pre-owned inventory as consumers search for more affordable purchase options.
Relationships between dealers and lenders in the auto market are also strengthening as evidenced by Arivo Acceptance becoming the captive finance arm of Ken Garff Automotive Group, news that Auto Finance News broke Oct. 10.
In other news, Tricolor Auto is reported to have stopped paying rent to some of its landlords ahead of filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Listen as Auto Finance News Senior Associate Editor Truth Headlam and Associate Editor Aidan Bush unpack the past week’s auto finance news and unveil some of what attendees can expect at this week’s Auto Finance Summit 2025.
Auto Finance Summit, the premier industry event for auto lending and leasing, returns Oct. 15-17 at the Bellagio Las Vegas. Learn more about the 2025 event and register here.
This episode is sponsored by The Work Number by Equifax.
Subscribe to “The Roadmap Podcast” on iTunes or Spotify or download the episode.
Editor’s note: This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain.
Aidan Bush 09:40:26And hello everyone, and welcome to the roadmap. From auto finance news since 1996 the nation’s leading newsletter on automotive lending and leasing. It is Monday, October 13, and I’m Aiden bush. First, I’d like to thank our sponsor for this week’s podcast, the work number by Equifax. So since we’re just sort of a few weeks past power sports finance summit 2025 and we’re also gearing up for our auto finance summit in Las Vegas this week, we really wanted to revisit some of the major power sports players and sort of takeaways we heard from that summit event in September as part of that auto finance news recognized 11 power sports finance executives to watch going forward. And I think the theme across these leaders was really resilience as they face declining sales, declining consumer confidence as prices rise, as prices rose, excuse me, inflationary pressures persisted and interest rates remained high. Despite these headwinds, some lenders have been able to aggressively expand. John crumb dick, Chief Executive of Iron Horse funding, was one of the 11 leaders named as Iron Horse funding doubled its origination volume year over year in the second quarter of 2025 it’s also eyeing ways to grow more monthly origination volume up to 50 million is, sort of their goal, from 20 million. Meanwhile, on sort of the dealership side, one of the recognitions Auto Finance News gave was to Bob key for his watch over promotions, profitability and optimism heading into 2026 key is Chief Executive of Texas based destination cycle sports and chair of the National power sports dealer Association, which he really mentioned, sort of in a fireside chat at power sports finance Summit, that his vision for the association is to serve as a support vehicle for dealers in the industry. One of the ways they’re doing that right now is by education, kind of programs for high turnover positions in the dealership that’s sort of including, you know, sales people, service writers and parts of counter people. Meanwhile, sort of on the manufacturing side. Argos chief executive Brad darling was recognized for his efforts with the ATV and snowmobile brand Arctic Cat. The company’s production was paused in late 2024 before darling and a private investment group brought Arctic CAC, bought Arctic Cat, excuse me, and in some ways, sort of revitalized the brand as it has since resumed production in August, I believe is even making new models, according to public reports, that’s just a few of the many innovative leaders and companies. Auto Finance News identified, as I mentioned, there’s a full 11 in the full article. So please check out auto finance news.net to see more and learn about some of the other impressive innovations going on in the power sports industry. Meanwhile, for what sort of major themes stuck out at our sports finance Summit, as well as sort of an update on auto more broadly, I will pass things over to truth.
Truth Headlam 09:43:29Thanks, Aiden. So diving further into power, sports funders and dealers are leaning into the used market to drive growth. Current sales in the youth market are driven by curb to curb sales and private party sales, and only about 1/3 of use sales are through dealerships. And although youth sales have fallen throughout the first half of the year, according to data provided by national power sport options, new sales fell a lot faster. As a result, dealers who were once hesitant to dive into the use market are now leaning into it. One way dealers are doing this is by leaning into CPO, certified pre owned vehicles and trade ins. Harley Davidson, for instance, is focused on its certified pre owned program in the way of declining new vehicle sales this year, the shift focuses on CPO and use sales, and it comes amid several consolidations of its dealerships that again took place earlier this year, and as the company has named a new chief executive, RT stars, who began his new role on October 1 In the Marine market, although used boat sales make up most sales, they continue to decline in August alongside boat registrations for RVs, shipments continue to drop in August, despite use prices dropping alongside them, giving some validity to the comments Made by Judd Chambery, Director of Sales at TCU, excuse me, TD ECU, he made the comments at the power sport finance summit 2025 where he said, although there are tons of used RVs out there, there’s not really a market for them across the power sports industry. Other. Of growth include leaning into women as a demographic for sales, social media trends and and vehicles that are made abroad, that may have lower price points. That’s about all for power sports for now, but diving into the auto market, there has been some interesting things happening there too. Auto Finance News last week exclusively reported that arrival acceptance was tapped to become the Catholic finance arm of Ken Graf Automotive Group in early 2026 now this auto group was the ninth largest in the US by new vehicle sales in 2024 so this is kind of a big deal. It’s important to note that John graph, who is the majority of owner of Ken Graf auto, founded a Revo in 2017 and still maintains his ownership of the financier, which operates as a separate entity from the Auto Group. Graph said that while there was always an idea that this venture between a Revo and the auto group would come to pass, a Revo needed to scale to a certain point in order to be able to handle the auto group’s volume. So the auto group already works with a mix of credit unions, banks and other financiers, so arriva will be really plugged into the Auto Group alongside their preferred lenders. So it’s not replacing anything or any relationships that already exist, but this will help to basically scale the business, or at least that is the hope so. For more details on arrivo and Ken Graf Automotive Group, listeners can read Amanda Harris’s article titled exclusive Ken graph automotive groups. Taps arivo acceptance as captive. I’ll turn it back over to you, Aiden for some additional takeaways from last week.
Aidan Bush 09:47:24 Thank you so much truth, especially for that sort of comprehensive look at both the power sports and auto industries. Kind of also last week. This is sort of becoming a weekly staple at this point. But for your tri color update, their section 341, meeting, which is sort of where creditors are allowed to ask questions and tri colors representatives are required to answer under oath, has been delayed to November 18 at 1pm some landlords who lease properties to tricolor also said the subprime lenders stopped paying rent in August, a month before it filed for chapter seven bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the FinTech space startup yendo has raised 50 million in its first equity funding series of the year. The four year old. FinTech has raised 100 million in equity funding since launching in 2021 and targets limited credit and subprime consumers by providing credit cards with borrowing limits based on a consumer’s vehicle value. Yendo also reported an uptick in refinance application volume, more than tripling from the 150 million AFN previously reported in February. Thank you all for joining us on the roadmap, and be sure to follow us on x and LinkedIn. We hope to see you this week at auto finance summit 2025 which takes place at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. But if you can’t make it, be sure to check our website this week and next for continued coverage. As always, we’ll see you online at auto finance news.net and thank you again to our sponsor, Equifax, lenders who leverage income and employment verifications through Equifax is the work number see a 48% higher likelihood of loans closing. Hope to see you next week. Have a great day.
Truth Headlam 09:43:29Thanks, Aiden. So diving further into power, sports funders and dealers are leaning into the used market to drive growth. Current sales in the youth market are driven by curb to curb sales and private party sales, and only about 1/3 of use sales are through dealerships. And although youth sales have fallen throughout the first half of the year, according to data provided by national power sport options, new sales fell a lot faster. As a result, dealers who were once hesitant to dive into the use market are now leaning into it. One way dealers are doing this is by leaning into CPO, certified pre owned vehicles and trade ins. Harley Davidson, for instance, is focused on its certified pre owned program in the way of declining new vehicle sales this year, the shift focuses on CPO and use sales, and it comes amid several consolidations of its dealerships that again took place earlier this year, and as the company has named a new chief executive, RT stars, who began his new role on October 1 In the Marine market, although used boat sales make up most sales, they continue to decline in August alongside boat registrations for RVs, shipments continue to drop in August, despite use prices dropping alongside them, giving some validity to the comments Made by Judd Chambery, Director of Sales at TCU, excuse me, TD ECU, he made the comments at the power sport finance summit 2025 where he said, although there are tons of used RVs out there, there’s not really a market for them across the power sports industry. Other. Of growth include leaning into women as a demographic for sales, social media trends and and vehicles that are made abroad, that may have lower price points. That’s about all for power sports for now, but diving into the auto market, there has been some interesting things happening there too. Auto Finance News last week exclusively reported that arrival acceptance was tapped to become the Catholic finance arm of Ken Graf Automotive Group in early 2026 now this auto group was the ninth largest in the US by new vehicle sales in 2024 so this is kind of a big deal. It’s important to note that John graph, who is the majority of owner of Ken Graf auto, founded a Revo in 2017 and still maintains his ownership of the financier, which operates as a separate entity from the Auto Group. Graph said that while there was always an idea that this venture between a Revo and the auto group would come to pass, a Revo needed to scale to a certain point in order to be able to handle the auto group’s volume. So the auto group already works with a mix of credit unions, banks and other financiers, so arriva will be really plugged into the Auto Group alongside their preferred lenders. So it’s not replacing anything or any relationships that already exist, but this will help to basically scale the business, or at least that is the hope so. For more details on arrivo and Ken Graf Automotive Group, listeners can read Amanda Harris’s article titled exclusive Ken graph automotive groups. Taps arivo acceptance as captive. I’ll turn it back over to you, Aiden for some additional takeaways from last week.
Aidan Bush 09:47:24 Thank you so much truth, especially for that sort of comprehensive look at both the power sports and auto industries. Kind of also last week. This is sort of becoming a weekly staple at this point. But for your tri color update, their section 341, meeting, which is sort of where creditors are allowed to ask questions and tri colors representatives are required to answer under oath, has been delayed to November 18 at 1pm some landlords who lease properties to tricolor also said the subprime lenders stopped paying rent in August, a month before it filed for chapter seven bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the FinTech space startup yendo has raised 50 million in its first equity funding series of the year. The four year old. FinTech has raised 100 million in equity funding since launching in 2021 and targets limited credit and subprime consumers by providing credit cards with borrowing limits based on a consumer’s vehicle value. Yendo also reported an uptick in refinance application volume, more than tripling from the 150 million AFN previously reported in February. Thank you all for joining us on the roadmap, and be sure to follow us on x and LinkedIn. We hope to see you this week at auto finance summit 2025 which takes place at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. But if you can’t make it, be sure to check our website this week and next for continued coverage. As always, we’ll see you online at auto finance news.net and thank you again to our sponsor, Equifax, lenders who leverage income and employment verifications through Equifax is the work number see a 48% higher likelihood of loans closing. Hope to see you next week. Have a great day.
