In the recent list of motor vehicle notices of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, an American street car manufactured by Wang Ye Group is more eye-catching, because it is too much like a combination of Harley and Qianjiang, it is more like Harley than the previous QJ338, which makes people have a variety of speculations for a while, this is Qianjiang splitting his legs? Or is Halley looking for a new love?
Let's start with three pictures.
QJMOTOR + Harley-Davidson = MOTOFINO (Motorfino)?
Although the sources are limited, I found two more interesting points on this car.
The first question is, what is the MOTOFINO brand? It is rumored that it is a Sino-US joint venture, and what is the story of its birth?
The second question is that the source of this engine, it is rumored that the engine of this car is provided by Qianjiang, it is reasonable to say that Qianjiang will not provide engines to the outside world for no reason, what is the PY transaction here?
With these questions in mind, I began a journey of exploration of the Wang Ye Group.
The word "Wang Ye" itself carries historical meaning, all of which must start from Honda and GY6 engines, because this engine has greatly promoted the development of the mainland motorcycle industry, and has also achieved a number of scooter companies such as Wang Ye, Jinlang, Lin Hai and so on.
First, the origin of GY6.
In the 1950s, Taiwan's economy, which had just been taken over by the Republic of China government, was in a very sluggish state and was waiting to be revived. Although the economy is not good, there are still rich people, especially rich people who like motorcycles, and it is better to ride motorcycles than to have no hope of counterattack.
Some foreign trade companies have sensed this opportunity and began to import some high-end motorcycles back to Taiwan for sale for profit. Somewhat similar to our current small traders, they imported some motorcycles that we could not buy and sold them back, earning the difference in price from them, and taiwan's earliest motorcycle culture began.
Although the petty bourgeoisie has the heart to play with cars, but the Republic of China government is unable to manage these things, the national treasury is already tight, the purchase of motorcycles must also use foreign exchange reserves, foreign exchange runs out of the economy will be finished! So they enacted a law at the end of 1951 that a foreign trade company could only import half of the parts of a motorcycle for maintenance, and the import of the whole vehicle was no longer allowed.
The implication is that the government has artificially raised the threshold of the industry, and if anyone wants to dump the whole car, he must have two foreign trade companies.
It is very difficult to set up a foreign trade company in a difficult time of economic difficulty, not only to comply with the law, but also to go through the top and bottom. But this is not difficult for people with hearts, especially those who have earned money on motorcycles, such as Huang Jijun, the founder of Sanyang Locomotive.
After hearing the news, Lao Huang immediately found his classmate Ke Guangshu of Taipei Chinese College (later the founder of Gwangyang Locomotive). At this time, Ke Guangshu was also doing foreign trade business in Taipei, and the two hit it off, in the name of repairing motorcycles, they each imported half of the parts of the motorcycle, and then assembled them into a whole vehicle for sale after arriving.
Is it legal? Not legal, make money? Really make money.
In this way, the two accumulated a considerable amount of original capital, and at the same time, in the process of reversing the car, the two big men also began business dealings with Honda Soichiro. High-end motorcycles are more profitable, but sales are small, and the low-end motorcycles honda produced at that time really helped to sell small profits and sell high. The two sides reached an agreement, and Honda also received a considerable income.
Because of the existence of this relationship, later Honda went to Taiwan to invest in a factory, Sanyang and Guangyang naturally became the main objects of Honda's support, and Liangyang also learned Honda's relatively new small displacement engine technology.
In 1993, GwangYung took its own technology to the mainland to set up a joint venture factory, and at the same time introduced a model called Homag 125, which was quickly imitated by friends and businessmen because of its good quality and strong speed. Because the original car was marked with the word GY6, the engine that came in the opposite direction of the car was also called the GY6.
There are too many companies that imitate this engine in China, and to this day there are still many companies still using this engine, because of its simple structure, strong durability, and it is enough to meet the needs of most people for transportation - scooters, can run on the line.
From 2000 to 2016, domestic scooters are basically the world of GY6.
However, in addition to imitation, there are also companies with lofty ideals, hoping to sell their own GY6 engines and vehicles abroad, so that foreigners can also see the domestic technology and seek better development by the way - for example, Wang Ye is such a company.
Although it debuted as a replica, Wang Ye did not focus on imitation, and it began to contact American dealers in 2003, determined to build a sub-brand to conquer overseas markets. How bold are people, how productive is the land, Honda is also two wheels and one engine, I Wang Ye has no reason to do it, right?
In 2003, Motofino officially established its global headquarters in Georgia, USA, and its brand positioning is committed to providing the best scooters for every American at a very low price. According to U.S. customs import information, the source of the Motofino scooter was provided by Wang Ye.
(As can be seen from the figure, the sales volume of this Sino-foreign joint venture is somewhat sluggish)
The history of Motofino began with Wang Ye's ambitions for the outside world.
So strictly speaking, Motofino is not a brand without history, especially for some manufacturers who have forged the history of the brand, Motofino has at least 20 years of objective precipitation, and it is also the first batch of motorcycle companies to witness Sino-US cooperation, but unfortunately it has no technical foundation, only one brand.
However, for the domestic motorcycle circle in 2022, technology has long been not just needed, Morini has pointed out a path for Motofino, we can find someone to cooperate with technology, if Morini can use the Spring Wind engine, then Motofino can use Qianjiang.
(A member of Motofino's management once held a position in Qianjiang.)
Unfortunately, I didn't find any PY transactions in it, but from the results, this transaction is nothing more than a core content.
Motofino in the product planning needs to listen to Qian Jiang's words, everyone can not hurt and angry, but also can not move, which can also explain why the appearance of Motofino is so much like the combination of Harley and QJMOTOR, in short, it is separated from QJMOTOR's "Flash 300", Qian Jiang can not beat himself.
Between the cruising and street car before the Motofino V-MASTER300 was also born, from the configuration point of view, we can only see the same parameter configuration as the "Flash 300" for the time being, as well as the front and rear ABS, as for the characteristics of this car in other aspects, can only wait for official news.
Summary:
With a fairly good design + Qianjiang's mature engine, as long as the ECU does not produce moths, I feel that Motofino still has a great chance to succeed, after all, the boom of domestic cruises is still continuing, as long as the quality control is not a problem, maybe it can be more popular than the Flash 300.
But for its future, I am not sure at present, in the past two years, more and more foreign trade enterprises have begun to transform into the domestic market, but everyone's pain points are surprisingly consistent, that is, there is no own engine. Buying an engine is indeed a road, but purely relying on external procurement, companies cannot be strong, and it is easy to be stuck in the neck at a certain critical stage.
It is reported that Motofino will be operated by the post-90s team, so it will be different to play a little differently.
In short, I would like to see the news of Motofino's self-development motivation, there are people in The country who are studying the four-cylinder, and there are people studying the V2 and three-cylinder, and only the horizontal opposed engine is still in the blank, a real blue ocean.
Anyway, it is all burning money to build cars, Wang Ye has also fished for so many years of GY6 benefits, So, Wang Ye, do you understand what I mean?