Ducati looking @ purchasing Gas-Gas

Ahhh, the Chinese don't need to buy a company like Gas Gas to produce a trials bike, they already borrowed one from Sherco. The new Xispa trials bike is an imperfect clone of the Sherco trials bike. Kind of like those 50cc Honda copies you see at Crown Auto and Pep Boys. They look like a Honda 50, but there's something that's just not quite right about them... Oh yeah, there cast from metal that has the consistancy of frozen butter.

If they wanted to make a Gas Gas, they'd just buy one and reverse engineer it. Copyright, trademark and patent laws are quite a bit different in China than they are in the rest of the world - as Honda found out when they outsourced their 50cc engines to Chinese manufacturers a few years back.
 
Ah yeah, off course they can reverse engineer any bike, but that is not the point.

Its a marketing stagety.

To break into a market you can either compete on price or buy a known trusted brand and launch your product thru this channel.

Its pretty much standard corporate practice that you buy out the competition instead of competing on price. We have all seen this all around us, good companies get bought and pretty much immediately closed down.

In a price war the corporate wins nothing, often not even a increased market share.
Image KTM or Yamaha dropping their prices by 50%, the other brands would have to follow to stay competitive. So now all the bikes would hover around the USD3-4K mark and nothing have really changed. Each brand sales would most likely stay around the same market share percentage. Nothing gained (apart from the consumers perspective, off course).

Now Yamaha buys KTM, removes the KTM brand from the market (or integrates the KTM products into Yamahas) and suddenly the supplier market is smaller and Yamaha would/should increase its market share.
Prices are still the same.

Now the interesting part is that the Chinese have in the past, just launched a product and sold it at a cost plus scenario. Due to their very low overheads their cost have been very low (certainly compared to any western country) and their product have been very cheap.

The Chinese have solely competed on price !

Now, if they start buying well known western brands to gain market share their whole marketing philosophy have changed.

And this has some significant implications for the market.
So maybe we will end up with a Chinese made KTM and the only alternative is a Chinese made GG.

Interesting times.....

K
 
Company buyouts

Im in the construction game and have known and worked with a tool line called RIDGID, well they were bought out and there products come off the same line as the cheep use and throw away in a year tool lines. They will ride the best name into the ground wipping all the way. Don
 
Chinese built KTM or GasGas motorcycles would most likely be the beginning of the end for that brandname without the manufacturer maintaining European R&D.

Imagine rolling up to the line with a vastly underpowered "old school" engine tecnnology Suzuki / Honda clone. The bike probably couldn't get out of it's own way compared to the current KTM or GG it was copied from.

We all know these "clone" bikes can be built and sold, its another thing to seriously think they would be competitive without continued European input into the design..

If GasGas were to be bought out by another company I would prefer it be by a current successful motorcycle manufacturer that is NOT involved in off-road motorcycles. A company like Ducati, that builds performance motorcycles, would not be the end of the world and would most likely open a few doors for the GasGas name.

Imagine the supermotard they could build!:D
 
Berkyboy said:
Chinese built KTM or GasGas motorcycles would most likely be the beginning of the end for that brandname without the manufacturer maintaining European R&D.

Imagine rolling up to the line with a vastly underpowered "old school" engine tecnnology Suzuki / Honda clone. The bike probably couldn't get out of it's own way compared to the current KTM or GG it was copied from.

We all know these "clone" bikes can be built and sold, its another thing to seriously think they would be competitive without continued European input into the design..
Click to expand...

Don't be fooled by the mass cheap bikes on offer from the Chinese. They can build good components for current bikes and they do !!! (You would be surprised where some components come from on your bike, not Gasser's but others)
Sure they copy and don't have the R & D like Japan and Europe, but I'm sure if they wanted to buy out a current top line manufacturer they wouldn't let it fall behind in Technology, they have the financial clout to keep it going.
 
I'm old enough to remember when everyone laughed at Japanese bikes, & look how that turned out.
 
LAWMAN said:
I'm old enough to remember when everyone laughed at Japanese bikes, & look how that turned out.
Click to expand...


scary when you think about it ....
someday the boards will be full of XING XING 250 VS. YING LI 250 threads!

gotta wonder how many riders would pony up for a new chinese gasser clone for $3500 instead of $7000. and by clone I mean identical to current level of quality.
 
Belleni is owned by a Chinese company but built in Italy. Their bikes look pretty trick. Come to think of it isnt one of the largest US investment firms owned by a Chinese company?
 
skid jackson said:
scary when you think about it ....
someday the boards will be full of XING XING 250 VS. YING LI 250 threads!

gotta wonder how many riders would pony up for a new chinese gasser clone for $3500 instead of $7000. and by clone I mean identical to current level of quality.
Click to expand...

Then you can buy one at Wal-Mart.
 
JRDoz said:
Don't be fooled by the mass cheap bikes on offer from the Chinese. They can build good components for current bikes and they do !!! (You would be surprised where some components come from on your bike, not Gasser's but others)
Sure they copy and don't have the R & D like Japan and Europe, but I'm sure if they wanted to buy out a current top line manufacturer they wouldn't let it fall behind in Technology, they have the financial clout to keep it going.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt the quality of the goods that the Chinese can build if quality is one of the specifications and not just cheaper quantities, the current GasGas motors already have some Chinese parts.

My point is, as is yours I believe, that anybody can buy a motorcycle company and continue to build that motorcycle, but they also have to recognize what made that motorcycle company successful in the first place.

What makes GasGas bikes so successful is their R & D program which is made up of employees that ride and race off-road motorcycles.
 
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You know what really pissed me off? To order and pay premium $$ for a luggage rack/sissy bar setup for my Harley, only to get it home to find it fits like crap and has "Made in China" cast in the bottom.:mad: WTF? So much for made in the USA, huh Willie G?
 
What is really lost in this "global warming" issue is the proliferation of Chinese goods here and abroad. We pay a premium for good health care (which everyone hears about), but we also pay a manufacturing premium due to environmental (EPA, OSHA, etc.) controls which are required here. There are no comparable environmental controls in China. Disregard the earth, disregard the air, disregard the water, but make inexpensive goods. The US is a huge customer of China, and as such, we are responsible for many of these problems. It isn't in our backyard, so we don't really care. It isn't a few people riding 2T motorcycles causing problems, it's the need for more and more inexpensive goods.

We will all pay for it in the end. We're cutting our own economic throat through our insatiable quest for inexpensive goods. The real price isn't paid at the store, and no one really seems to understand that. We'll be paying for this economic disaster for decades. We don't have a fair trade agreement with China because the bases for trade are so disparate.

I hope we wake up and return to the notion that quality, not quantity really matters. Who needs a new cell phone every year? Unlike motorcycles, a one year old phone has no value, so when it's replaced, it's toast. It has only a negative economic impact (disposal costs). On the other hand, for those who want a new motorcycle every year, it still creates positive economic impact. With the sale of a used bike, there are parts to buy, service to be had, etc. Used items of value (and desire) improve the economic bottom line, whereas the disposable stuff doesn't. The vast majority of Chinese goods can be categorized as disposable.

What appears cheap now will turn out to be VERY expensive in the future. Quality of goods, quality of life really matter, but we've lost sight of that. Our economy, and most peoples' lives are now based solely on volume and low price.

Sorry for the rant.
 
No argument here. I used to work for the German TUV as a product safety compliance engineer. A German engineer friend of mine went to Taiwan to inspect factories for production compliance. He told me half the island is very polluted and void of much animal life. No birds, and many of the trees are brown. Primarily due to the unregulated plastics industry in the recent past, which is about where mainland China is now.

Also consider that we are helping to build another superpower. As much oil as they consume for their industrial machine, they are also building a huge strategic reserve. Scary.
 
I heard Buell was buy them ;)

or was it Bombardier for the Can-Am line.

I'm just kidding I have no idea...:D
 
It could be great to for Gas Gas to get some cash to start markiting & supporting world wide off-road race teams so the buying public could see how the Gasser stacks up against KTM's & there ever expanding race budget. Ducati loves to race & win they have been spending a shit load in MotoGP & WSB over the last 5 years & who knows maybe we'll see a Desmo off road motor. The only downside to Ducati is there way of producing very focused expensive high maintance race bikes with lights & the rest of there bikes are under powered over priced bling that sells like hot cakes.
 
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