Zongshen 2004 =
Honda 1954?
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When our European correspondent Roland Brown
e-mailed us and account of the Chinese firm
Zongshen's press conference at the annual
Internet trade show, we had a profound sense of
déjà vu, and it wasn't from reading Patrick
Bodden's latest column. The firm seems poised to
be this century's Honda. Think we're
exaggerating? Read on before drawing your own
conclusions.
By the
Mid-1950s, Honda was already the largest
motorcycle manufacturer in the world, though it
made only small-displacement machines for the
Japanese domestic market. This year, Zongshen
will produce -- brace yourself -- a million
small bikes for sale in China .
Soichiro Honda
knew Grand Prix roadracing would serve both to
develop his company's products and popularize
them in export market. In 1954 he made his dream
public, promising his company would build its
own Grand Prix winners. He traveled to the Isle
of Man , Where he studied state-of-the-art 125
and 250cc NSU racers. Later, when the Italian
firm Mondial withdrew from Grand Prix, Honda
arranged to acquire its machines.
A few years ago,
Zongshen emulated Honda by buying customer
GSX-R1000 Susukis and running them in the FIM
Endurance World Championship, which it won in
2002. In the process, it inevitably got to know
a state-of-the-art machine inside and out. Then
last September at Intermot, Zongshen announces
plans to build its own MotoGP contender and race
it in '07. |
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When Honda first attempted to build a
competitive Grand Prix racebike, the company
failed. Soichiro Honda came to realize that by
copying the European machines dominating the
sport, he would always be one generation behind
the leaders. He realized he would have to create
his own research and development division and
win “made in Japan ” technology.
Now Zongshen has announced that it will open a
new, $100- million R&D center in China . Besides
its MotoGP dreams, the company plans to sell
sophisticated, Large-displacement bikes all over
the world, and soon. Brown expects to see a
high-performance middleweight offered at a
competitive price at Intermot '06.
Skeptics will
say, so far, Zongshen has produced nothing but
cheap, smoky copies of outdated foreign
machines. Of course, that same criticism was
once leveled at the Japanese motorcycle
industry…
The Zongshen Motorcycle Team, founded in
1999, is unique because it is the only
Chinese motorcycle racing team to
participate in the World Motorcycle
Championships.
In 2000 and in 2001, the Zongshen
motorcycle team have been evaluated for
the world motorcycle championship
tournament (endurance match) and
considered the year's top-notch motor
team.
In 2002, at the World Motorcycle
Endurance Championships, Zongshen
Motorcycle Team was declared champion of
the year.
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