The day before yesterday sent a tweet about the upcoming release of Gaojin GK1200, and there are car friends in the background who leave such a message:
Riders are not very able to understand why a British-style retro car should emphasize its own 100 km acceleration of 3.7s, but also to say the ceiling of domestic performance.
So I had a more absurd idea, if the GK1200 and the Spring Wind 450SR are compared, who is stronger? Who is the better performing car?
But here there is a question to unify the concept first, what is performance? Then there's the question of how to compare.
Motorcycle performance in a broad sense includes: power, safety, economy, handling, comfort, reliability. The performance in our usual concept refers more to the sport performance of the motorcycle, and the movement is related to the dynamics, handling, and safety, that is to say, this is not only the power to move, but also to control the excellent, the key can also be braked.
However, many riders' understanding of performance is often limited to data-based power, that is, 0-100 data and speed data. There are several reasons for this limitation:
First, only acceleration and speed can be used to visually display data, but also novice xiaobai can understand, some descriptive, experiential evaluation is difficult to understand, because novice xiaobai does not have that experience; second, the brand in order to be able to attract users more effectively, will focus on such intuitive data to highlight product advantages; third, the media in content dissemination, will intentionally or unintentionally transmit a concept, that is, 0-100 and speed represent performance.
But for experienced riders, more important is the torque output range, the ductility of the power and the matching of the transmission mechanism.
In addition to the power aspect, the sporty performance also has handling and braking performance. Then if you take the GK1200 and 450SR ratio in terms of athletic performance, the best way is to get off the track and look at the lap speed, which should be the most reasonable.
These two cars off the track than the lap, I think it must be a funny picture, the result will be, should not need to say more.
Then some people may say, you take a retro car and sports car to run the track, this is unreasonable, hey, this is to the point, since it is a retro car, why do you want to emphasize performance? Do you see where retro cars have more athletic performance between them?
Since the retro car is not suitable for performance, why does Gao Jin have to find someone to do a 100-kilometer acceleration data, and then use it as a publicity selling point? And this wording is not too rigorous, "domestic performance ceiling" in the middle to add an "acceleration", into the "domestic acceleration performance ceiling" is reasonable.
Is gao jin really spreading because they don't understand retro cars? Don't know that retro cars do 100 km acceleration and use it as a selling point to laugh and be generous?
It must not be, of course, Gao Jin understands retro cars, otherwise GK1200 will not be in place, but it is useless to understand retro cars, understand the market is useful, and the sale of products is the key.
So the question is, who is the GK1200 sold to? Why buy GK1200?
Mentioning GK1200 seems to mention the Triumph T120, there is also a GK1200 is T120 flat replacement, so how many of the potential users who pay attention to GK1200 have ridden T120 or Triumph retro cars? If you buy GK1200 because of insufficient budget, then if the budget is sufficient, such as a budget of 120,000-140,000, will these riders really buy Triumph?
This is the extension, who is buying triumph?
On this issue, and my friend Vintage Locomotive Public Number E said eric, we also did a lot of discussion, as the owner of triumph, he shared with me is very interesting: buy triumph modern classics This product line of users, must be just triumph retro fans? Of course not:
1, Triumph at the end of 19 Q4 into the country, in the Bonneville retro car sales of the main force to achieve impressive results is bob, which is a high value, and attract many types of users of the car, not retro is not important, the first value is the king, there is no lack of a large number of female users.
2, attract many users is, British cars, liters or quasi-total upgrades, riding comfort is high, easy to use, the price is attractive and has face, why not buy it? These users don't just care about the T100 or Kawasaki's Z900RS which is more classical, pure, and doesn't matter.
3, the above 2 types of user groups will not have a very high brand exclusivity, the turnover rate is not low. Truly a retro die-hard fan like Eric, the future car change will be only the person who looks for triumph, which is definitely a minority.
Here's the problem:
Who does the brand want our vintage models to sell? Is it a hardcore user who has a love for retro and knows it very well? That would have hung up long ago. Of course, it is hoped that it can be sold to a wider user group, so that more people who originally did not ride retro and did not understand retro can buy our products, which is the core business logic.
So back to the gold GK1200, which are the potential users? I analyze potential users into two broad categories:
The first category: genuinely like the British retro vintage car enthusiasts, but the budget is not enough to buy Triumph, retreat to the second, choose GK1200 as a flat replacement. I estimate that the proportion of users in this part is not large, because there are not many real retro fans among the owners of Triumph. That part of the user who chooses GK1200 as a flat replacement, sooner or later will still be changed to Triumph, so they will be more sensitive to the price of GK1200, high either do not buy, or bite the teeth on the second-hand Triumph.
The second category: not a loyal vintage car enthusiast, just want to buy a motorcycle. There are two cases:
1, now riding a motorcycle of about 30,000, ready to upgrade, the budget is not particularly high, in a group of 5-60,000 models to see badly, sports cars, retro, cruise, ADV what are possible to buy, GK1200 is an alternative model, if the price is right, may be purchased.
2, want to buy a "cost-effective" large displacement motorcycle, do not understand the difference between retro cars and other models, see GK1200, the displacement of public upgrades, electronic throttle, cruise control, 100 km acceleration 3.7s, the price of more than 60,000, this thing is super cost-effective, as Eric mentioned, some Triumph owners do not know what is the difference between T120\T100 and Z900RS. A rider once asked me what it was like to ride the GK1200 long-distance motorcycle? He felt that the large displacement, high configuration, and fixed speed cruise should be more suitable for long-distance motorcycle travel.
Therefore, the main potential user group of GK1200 is not a real retro car fan, if Gao Jin targets these people, product dissemination is in accordance with such user portraits, it will really go to a dead end.
GK1200 in order to achieve market success, it must weaken the retro elements, and emphasize the product displacement, power, configuration, to highlight the high cost performance of the product, so as to sell the car to more people, so that the 3.7S 100 km acceleration performance as a communication highlight is very market-oriented, as to whether it will be laughed at by retro enthusiasts, this is not important. Say a thousand ways and ten thousand, and selling the car is king.
Objectively speaking, this is no wonder Gao Jin, because our domestic personalized motorcycle development is too late, the understanding of the rider group for motorcycles is still in its infancy, the market is not very mature, most of the purchase behavior is relatively blind, in such an environment, some seemingly unprofessional communication methods are actually unavoidable, survival is the first priority.
But from the perspective of the development of motorcycle culture, I think the less such a way, the better, because this may cause a vicious circle, the more simple and rude ideas are transmitted to users, the lower the user's cognitive level of motorcycles, which will reverse the brand, which is not conducive to the precipitation of the brand.
I'm really afraid to see such a scene, GK1200 owners on the Network clamoring to collapse this and that, it is too sad.
Note: The article is reproduced in "Rhino Talk Motorcycle"