Since the debut of the Roadliner in 2006, Star has made the most of the Art Deco platform by expanding the ‘Liner family to the Stratoliner, Stratoliner S, and in 2010 jumping into the bagger game with the Stratoliner Deluxe. Using the same basic frame and engine, the Deluxe gets the basic bagger treatment with a fork-mounted fairing and matching hard bags. However, some of the luxury features such as cruise control were left out of the mix. Could the Star’s massive engine make up for its lack of creature comforts in this showdown?
A very stout 1854cc, pushrod V-Twin propels the Stratoliner and is hands down the performer in this shootout. Twist the right grip and you are immediately greeted with a surge of torque that outpaces the competition with a quickness. It’s not even really a fair fight as the undersquare engine destroyed the Kawasaki and Harley on the MotoUSA dyno with almost 20 more horsepower at 86.79 hp at 4400 rpm. And the hits just kept coming with a 111.21 lb-ft of torque at 2300 rpm, besting the other baggers by 25 lb-ft.
“When it came time to dial in some power the Star was the bad-boy. It feels like a Twin and accelerates like a big-bore,” says our Editorial Director Ken Hutchison. “No surprise as it’s the biggest engine in the bunch and as they say – there’s no replacement for displacement. In our roll-on tests in the real world, the Star didn’t feel like it had the most bottom end, but it came on like gangbusters and dusted the other bikes every time.”
Our straight-line testing backs up Hutch’s assessment with a 0-60 mph time that was over a second quicker than the Vaquero at 4.60 seconds. The Stratoliner Deluxe accelerated through the quarter mile in a time of 13.85 seconds with a speed of 98.17 mph. Very impressive considering the Star also recorded the best fuel economy of 44.1 mpg, however the smallest tank of 4.5 gallons shortens the range to the worst of the trio at just shy of 200 miles.
With that much motor, the brakes had better be solid to haul the 811-pound bagger back down to earth after you get a little happy with the right wrist. The dual 298mm front rotors mated with monoblock calipers deliver great feel, though modulation could stand to be a bit stronger. At the rear the 320mm disc brake locks up easily making pulling out a consistent number in the 60-0 mph braking test problematic. The best number we could achieve was 141.55 feet with just a slight chirp from the rear tire, besting the Vaquero by a couple of feet but still 13 feet further than the ABS-equipped Harley.
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