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Powersports Business • November 2026 • 13

ABOUT THE DATA

This analysis uses Lightspeed DMS data from U. S. powersports dealerships, covering September 2024 through August 2026 and pulled Oct. 19, 2026. A deal counts as financed when it names a finance company, finances more than $ 500 and passes the same data checks Lightspeed uses in its own finance reports. Rates, terms and loan amounts are medians across contracts with a recorded rate and a term of at least 12 months, including 0 % promotional deals. Buyer age is measured at the time of purchase and is recorded on about 3 in 4 deals. Generations follow birth year, with Gen Z born in 1997 or later and boomers and older born in 1964 or earlier. These are deals recorded on dealers’ own systems rather than an industry census, so the mix reflects which dealers use Lightspeed; Harley-Davidson, for instance, accounts for about 4 % of the new units financed here.

HOW WE GROUP LENDERS

We group lenders by the kind of institution behind them rather than by their names. Eaglemark Savings Bank, for example, holds a bank charter but operates as Harley-Davidson’ s finance arm, so it counts as a captive. Sheffield Financial is a division of Truist Bank, yet it lends across many brands and counts as an independent. Lending mostly on one brand doesn’ t make a lender a captive either, as Auxilior Capital Partners shows: more than 90 % of what it finances is Bobcat equipment, and it is a third-party lender. One credit union entry combines more than 2,000 credit union names as dealers typed them in.

Figure 2. Average buyer age by lender. Lenders with at least 2,000 contracts and buyer age on most of them. DOT size shows each lender’ s share of deals.

an average of about 36. Roadrunner Financial is the largest single lender in the data and sits closer to the young end, with buyers about two-and-a-half years younger than the market average.

Outside the credit unions, buyer age tracks the cost of credit, and lenders with younger customers tend to charge higher rates. Some of that comes from the machine rather than the rider, because used units carry higher rates than new ones. Credit unions don’ t follow the pattern; their buyers are about as old as the market as a whole, yet they charge the least of any group. Eaglemark goes the other way, pairing olderthan-average buyers with higher-than-average rates.

GEN Z’ S GROWING SHARE Gen Z already accounts for 1 in 5 financed buyers, and its share grew faster than any other generation’ s over the two years. That tilts the overall buyer mix younger, and those buyers pay the most for their money( Figure 3). Gen Z’ s typical rate runs nearly 3.5 points above