Benelli is looking to refresh their entire range and also introduce new models while it’s at it. The Chinese-owned Italian brand announced it could be adding motorcycles ranging from a 125cc learner bike to a parallel-twin 750cc motorcycle for 2017.
Haimei Yan, Benelli’s General Manager said, “We have really big plans for Benelli in 2017 to expand our range to appeal to European tastes. We currently only have the 302, the new 251 and the 600 so we can’t say we have the range at the moment to appeal to the European market. But at the end of the year we will show a far more complete range going from 125cc to 750cc. This will include the 500, a new 600 model and also a new parallel-twin 750cc, aimed directly at Europe. We are also working on giving new life to the three cylinder 899 and 1200 engines.”
Qianjiang, the Chinese group who owns Benelli is one of the biggest motorcycle builders in China. Manufacturing over one million bikes a year of which around 50,000 are currently Benelli branded.
“Qianjiang has a very different resource to European motorcycle manufacturers,” confirms Yan. “If you look at them they only have larger bikes, no scooters and few smaller-capacity machines. Qianjiang has all the resources and makes scooters and motorcycles, it has a complete range of bikes ranging from a 125cc and 250c single, 300cc and 500cc parallel twins, 600cc inline four, a new 750cc parallel twin and the 899 and 1200 triples.”
When asked if Benelli can still be viewed as an Italian brand since most of the motorcycle are manufactured in China. Yan said “Benelli’s heritage is very important to us and it is still an Italian brand, we do all the research, design and development in Italy and the Chinese manufacture the product, although the three cylinder Benellis will still be built in Italy. All the new motorcycle technology is coming from Europe, especially Italy, and they have more creativity than the Chinese, but the Chinese are very good at manufacturing. That’s why Benelli works so well. We also believe that we can match the Japanese when it comes to quality.”
Although there is no mention of India, it is likely that we could a see fair share of these motorcycles making their way to our dealerships sometime in 2017.
Source - MCN
