FIRST RIDE
P92
BENELLI BN600 EVO
The decision to develop the
BN600 was one of the first made
by its president Lin Hua Zhong, as
part of his strategy to position QJ
as a contender in the global marketplace by acquiring an existing
Western two-wheeled brand. The
plan was to then use its product
development expertise to produce a technically and stylistically more sophisticated range of
motorcycles to be manufactured
in China. So, as Benelli's chief
engineer Stefano Michelotti confirms, this meant that when the
project kicked off in 2006, the
BN600 was designed and initially developed in Italy in collaboration with QJ engineers - then
transferred to China for final preproduction development. This
meant that Benelli tester Gianluca Galasso covered countless
test miles riding the prototype
bike in the open on public roads,
carefully disguised as a well-worn
Honda Hornet that nobody would
give a second look.
"To begin with, it was difficult
to work with Chinese engineers,
not only with the language difficulties, but also because we
were each accustomed to pursuing different objectives in creating
a new design," says Michelotti.
"But little by little we understood
each other's strengths, and now
the collaboration is fantastic. It
bodes well for the future, with
other projects."
So in finally following Lin's
strategy, QJ has now exploited
the crucial advantage this has
yielded it versus its Chinese ri-
vals, in terms of the technical expertise needed to develop a fourcylinder motorcycle that allows it
to compete directly on the world
stage with Japanese and European products - but with a crucial
edge on price.
The BN600 is the first product
QJ has built that's over 250cc
in capacity, and the Italian company's female CEO Yan Haimei
has confirmed this to be the first
of several new models bearing
the Benelli badge. All of them
will be engineered jointly by QJ
and Benelli technicians, then
manufactured in China to reduce
costs. This results in a prestige
model for developing markets - including China itself, where 3000
examples of the BN600 have already been sold since its home
market debut one year ago - before it's upgraded with European
