More from tomo-moto

Apologies to all, that you've been waiting to hear more from me on this thread. I've been busy, and wanted to see what more people said. However I think I should clarify exactly what wil be on offer, as perhaps I didn't explain it well enough.

I will be taking a stock bike (be it Karizma, Pulsar, RTR etc) and doing modifications to that. Only once we are sucessful in developing our brand, and proving the market will we generate sufficient investment to start developing our own (bigger engined) bikes from the ground up.

What has been suggested about people buying little bits of the kit at a time is interesting, however I believe right now to be unrealistic. We will be selling whole kits, as a function of getting our brand identity clear from the start. The kit components will be very much integrated, and so difficult to use with the stock chassis/bodywork etc.

I find it a little deflating too, to discover the amount of money that people (the few people that have responded) are saying they'd spend on such a kit. To produce something of the quality and uniqueness that I envisage, to the prices you envisage is entirely unrealistic. I appreciate your honesty however. My vision is not to create a kit for the masses, but a limited run of kits for those who want a better machine, but also exclusivity.

Please encourage others to post their 2 cents worth here. I'm intrigued to hear any and all viewpoints.

Cheers

Ain't no sweat Tomo!
hmm. Since you intend to sell complete kits and not individual parts in order to establish your brand in what is possibly a highly exclusive and small market, it would be a tad difficult at first. Like everything else in life. But on the other hand, I'm sure there are very few players catering to this market as of now. So things look to be good. Let's see how this goes.

Oh and keep positive bro.
All the best again.

Now you're getting it!

@ Tomo: I appreciate your efforts, but somehow I don't see a practical side to this thing.

How will you market & distribute it, across cities? How will you receive payments?

If you even manage marketing, what about exclusivity? I think all kits would be same ...won't they?

BTW if you opt for postal/ courier system, a P180 kit for me please? including Rearsets!

@moto- Firstly, Good idea. Even i with a 2 other known faces in the mumbai xbhp(razor and anup) have certain biking entrepreneurial ventures in mind. Maybe there could be a joint effort. We were contemplating on posting the way you did, plagiarism was always a worry. check your PM.

IMHO, A kit priced at maybe eighty to hundred thousand Gandhibacks for a motorcycle like the Zma or Apache, however exclusive it may be just doesn't seem to have the all important "value" quotient. Such kits are available abroad for bigger motorcycles, at prices similar to the aforementioned price range. Why would anyone spend that kind of money on small capacity motorcycles? Even if they do, they would do so primarily to avoid the hassles of importing such a kit.

In such a scenario, the base of Indian super-moto motorcycles lining up for track days at suburban go-kart tracks diminishes substantially. This "exclusivity" could easily lead to too few super-motos with even fewer tracks to burn up the asphalt. If people can spend a couple of lakhs for a modded super-moto, they would as well spend a couple more and buy themselves a real genuine alternative like the Yamaha XT660X which has a MSRP of $5999. Why a kit to make a Zma or an Apache look and feel(somewhat) like a XT660X or an Aprilia SXV450?

My only request to you is this. Keep costs low and make the kit accessible to more bikers. Slowly, you and we can graduate to high end kits, if not whole motorcycles. Introducing our biking brethren to this concept is possible only with affordability, along with quality being cornerstones of the entire concept. That said, even if you price it too high, a few people may buy it, but many avid bikers(read students and young professionals) will not be able to afford it. Also, as you mentioned, if you intend to keep it highly exclusive and very few people put money where their mouths are, how do you intend to further develop newer concepts. This query crossed my mind as I was thinking about new R&D and human capital that might be required to develop the kits further.

If you have large pockets and a team of brilliant designers and engineers, I think that you can manage to hire the best. On the other hand, if you are intending to spend money on the R&D with the profits you will be generating, you might find the going a little difficult as the market will automatically fall into the niche category, once the kits are priced at close to one lakh levels. These figures are just my assumptions as the focus is on exclusivity.

May I also ask you your price point for the super-moto kits you intend to make, just a random figure? That would give us all here a better idea as to whether we can afford it or not. Kindly don't feel that I am discouraging you or trying to make this wonderful initiative of your's look bad. I will support it even if you price the kits beyond my reach. But, I won't be able to put money where my mouth is and that piques me no end.

Cheers,

Jay

Good point Jay. But, let's say people can afford a kit priced at 100,000 Rupees for a Desi Bike. However, even if they can pool in additional cash amounting to the equivalent of $5999, I don't think most of them would go ahead and race/participate with an "import" on urban go-kart tracks.
Desi bikes would be a lot less painful to crash on you see.

Well, let's see what Tomo has to say.
Although I feel quoting an approximate price range at this moment would still lead us to a vague figure. And calculating profits on such a temporary price-tag would be even more tedious for the simple fact that we do not know the overall equipment and the kind of hardware that would go into one such kit.

All said and done, its getting more interesting and I'm hoping for the best.

Re Designing and frames and Kits for existing models

tomo- i have a question up. This is in interests in line to you thought of having a kit for re designing the graphics and dynamics of the existing bike to your stride of "branded" so called look.

Would you be interested in sending ppl and kits for developing a custom made bikes above 350CC, like a HD choppers,bobbers, cruiser.I see lots of future in india for Custom made choppers with existing engines or imported V twin engines. We would be interested in for your part supply and engines if needed. we would provide the design/production pipeline/budget range for enique customers, who loves to ride the best looking custom bikes of their choice.

Whats your thoughts on this? or do u have contacts to satisfy this layer of customers in india.

It's all gone a bit quiet! I know, partly my fault, but I was hoping more people would have something to say on this. Perhaps there is a significance in the small number of responses to this thread...

Since Jayprasanth seems to be the most vocal, I shall address some of the things he has said:

He queries why would anybody buy an Indian made product, designed for Indians, and sold and technically supported in India, when they could buy an imported bike such as Yamaha's XT660... Yes of course if one could raise sufficient capital to import such a bike, it is a wonderful bike for the money, and having ridden one across in India for over 3 months can honestly say it's perfect. For me. At 185cm tall. What's the average height in India again? (Clearly not intended as an attack on Indian's average stature, but I'm sure you get my point). Also with little factory backup for such an obscure model in India, as 46wannabe correctly says, who wants to crash one of these (although they crash very well!)
Jayprasanth asks "Why a kit to make a Zma or Apache look and feel (somewhat) like an XT660X or an Aprilia SXV450?" If buying my kit made the total cost of the bike comparable to that of an imported model, then I'd agree, but since it won't, I want to know WHY NOT do it?? What is you actually want from your domestic manufacturers (aside from bigger engines)? Are you fully contented by their current offerings, and think that all possible genres of bikes are catered for albeit with engines that are too small? Forget that for my products the base vehicle is a common Indian bike, if you change the dynamics and look of the bike, it IS essentially a different bike!

I've had some time to think, and I'm sort of torn between the "stack it high, sell it cheap" model, which would help combat plagiarism by making it pointless for copy-cats to produce inferior kits, at a marginally cheaper retail price, or the alternative of promoting an exclusive more aspirational niche product. What is important in this decision making, is to hear from you guys, who (from what I can tell) would prefer to buy something that less advanced/refined, but is cheap. Let me know what you think, and if there are only 11 people who are remotely interested in this potential product line, perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely!

You've asked me to put a potential price tag on this, but it's difficult until the approach and position of the products is established, so I'll continue to refrain for now. I would hate to influence your comments by installing a pricepoint in your minds.

Cheers for your continued help guys!

perhaps there is a significance in the number of 'views' to this thread rather.
yes, true, this involves big money, many copycats, and even discussing the theme in open would expose the ideas. so as sunny said, 'walk the talk', make it good and cheap, copycats/stealers would be there now or later. and then sure you would find more posts flooding in i believe.
my thoughts businesswise/not mech... assuming 80% of Indians are commuters, in remaining 20, leave tourers as they prefer more stock bikes. and you are left with a small number who are into performance. and in that lot, who ride karizma, r15, rtr160 people who prefer motos would be even lesser. i mean, putting aside posers.
good luck. chill...

Tomo-Moto,

You price it too high and then there will be enough copy-cats selling your designs dirt cheap and posers lapping them up once your concept becomes "the thing" to strut around. The other end of the spectrum is low cost- reasonably high quality pricing. This would also invite a fair share of copy-cats but you would be battling them in their own territory, the low cost territory. Here, you could emphasise on your quality, your originality and take on the competition head on. This strategy is being followed by the biggest global auto-makers in the Chinese market as they just aren't able to stop the copy-cats and match their price points. So, they are pricing/developing their products to suit the Chinese people at marginally higher prices(read higher quality) than that of the fakies.

Face it, you will have to take on competition sooner or later. If you cater to an ultra niche segment,the returns could potentially be too low for high investment and your idea to take off. OTOH an affordable product would find more takers and the chances for the returns on your investment would be better. Price your kit at half the price of a new Indian "performance" motorcycle, you have me(and plenty of xbhpians) all excited. Price it way above the aforementioned money, you'll have more onlookers than riders. Value for money coupled with decent quality is all we want. Fancy names can wait. For chrissakes, we are bang in the middle of a brutal recession

Form the post's Of Tomo-Moto i have learned that the Inteative he has taken, has the objective of producing quality modfications to the current line up of indian bikes..now if it is assumed that these mods are top of the line and really explore and utilize the potential of our indian bikes,considerably more than every other maybe inferior in quality but perhaps cheaper alternatives..and also if an exclusivity factor for the services offered can be maitained..any price tag could be justfied...