Monday, November 20, 2006

Chinese chopper copies a clone



So here's the odd progression from American iron to the streets of Beijing: Harley-Davidson made bank on a motorcycle image, and then Honda copied the basic design and named it the "American Classic Edition" of the Honda Shadow. Now, some Chinese company has decided to copy the copy of the original, as their version even mimicks Honda's gas tank logo. Too funny. Note that the Chinese motorcycle, however, only has one cylinder. We're not sure why it is, but the vast majority of motorcycles in Beijing only have one cylinder. Those that have two cylinders are typically lugging a sidecar and are therefore three-wheeled vehicles. We suspect that this might be a regulation of some kind, though we've seen at least four tricked-out Harleys (with full V-twin motors) here in town, so if there's a rule, there's also an exception (or four).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From your blogs I'm starting to think that the Chinese may not have the value name recognition drive that consumers here do. is that the case? Like (after taking the 15 year old shopping) I got to thinking would kids there be just has happy with a shirt that looks like an abercromie or do they have the same drive to have the brandname?