engineer wrote on 03/09/17 at 10:36:12:Looks good but those Chinese bike builders never develop a dealer or parts distribution network. But in the fifties and sixties it was the same way with some obscure central/eastern European and Italian bike brands. They were also small and inexpensive and kids rode them to destruction and simply trashed them when they needed serious repairs.
I object to that.
With the demise of
Indian, the only motorcycle manufacturer left in the US was
Harley Davidson.
In 1960 HD bought
Aermacchi for pennies, and started importing a... castrated version of their 250cc and 350cc motorcycles.
I never really understood why the US needed buckhorn bars, a 4sp gearbox and less power than the European market, but that's the way it was.
The Aermacchi 350SS 4-stroke single could outrun, outbrake, outmanoeuver the contemporary 900cc Ironhead Sportster any time of the day - at least here in Europe.
Other Italian motorcycles were sold in the US, namely the famous
Sears-Allstate
...
Known to the rest of the world as Piaggio Vespa, Gilera or Puch (austrian)
The truth of the matter is that, short of Triumph/Norton and BMW, European manufacturers found it much too expensive to ship budget-minded lower-end motorcycles overseas.
So you were flooded by the Japanese bikes, because YOU were the only Country they could really export to.
Communist China ? Viva Mao's bicycle!
India ? Too busy dodging holy cows...
Australia and New Zealand? Nice guys but a very small market.
U S A ? They won the war, were never bombed, ended the war richer than when they started...
YOU were the export market of choice !
The rest is history...