Benelli is planning to introduce a fleet of motorcycles in European market ranging from 125cc to 750cc. The Chinese Qianjiang group bought the Italian motorcycle brand due to financial issues 11 years ago. Since then the Chinese firm was working on brand building and stabilization by building smaller capacity bikes.
According to the Motorcycle News (MCN) reports, the Qianjiang are ready to introduce a fleet of bigger bikes ranging from 125cc to 750cc for the European market.
Haimei Yan, Benelli’s General Manager said,
“We have really big plans for Benelli in 2017 to expand our range to appeal to European tastes, we currently only have the 302, the new 251 and the 600 so we can’t say we have the range at the moment to appeal to the European market. But at the end of the year we will show a far more complete range going from 125cc to 750cc. This will include the 500, a new 600 model and also a new parallel-twin 750cc, aimed directly at Europe. We are also working on giving new life to the three cylinder 899 and 1200 engines.”
At present, Qianjiang export 5000 units to Europe out of 50,000 units that it produce annually under the Benelli brand.
“Qianjiang has a very different resource to European motorcycle manufacturers,” confirms Yan. “If you look at them they only have larger bikes, no scooters and few smaller-capacity machines. Piaggio have scooters, but it splits its brands. Qianjiang has all the resources and makes scooters and motorcycles, it has a complete range from 125cc to 1200cc to appeal to a worldwide market. Only really Honda and Yamaha have a similar range and we are the only Chinese manufacturer who builds this variety of bikes. We have scooters, a 125cc and 250c single, 300cc and 500cc parallel twins, 600cc inline four, a new 750cc parallel twin and the 899 and 1200 triples.”
When asked that majority of motorcycles being built at China, can Benelli still be termed as Italian Brand? Yan says
“Benelli’s heritage is very important to us and it is still an Italian brand, We do all the research, design and development in Italy and the Chinese manufacture the product, although the three cylinder Benellis will still be built in Italy. All the new motorcycle technology is coming from Europe, especially Italy, and they have more creativity than the Chinese, but the Chinese are very good at manufacturing. That’s why Benelli works so well. We also believe that we can match the Japanese when it comes to quality.”
