There are a few things you should know about China. You always get what you pay for in China. And: Modern Chinese are still susceptible to vision loss. Moreover, the Chinese hate the Japanese. And the Chinese motorcycle history started in 1951.
Takeaway Chinese
The Chinese are there. They just bought the world. Including Benelli (by Zongshen founded in 1970.) What do you need the world for? To remove raw materials from and as a buyer. Also for motorcycles. The conquest of the motorcycle world was not a priority. The Chinese home market has been good for the sales of 16.000.000 units in recent years. Per year. And that number is growing. In China, just like in the old days, the motorcycle is the first step on the road to motorized transport for the masses.
Home market versus export, old against new.
And where everyone thinks endearingly of the heavy Chiang Jiang sidecars, the pre-war BMW clones and former Russian M72s, they are actually motorcycles with cylinder capacities between 50-200 cc. That home market is also the benchmark for the entire engine production. That home audience sets significantly lower quality requirements than we, Westerners, do. Together with the fact that many purchasing Western traders were / are only looking for short profit, this results in the often-uttered battle cry "Vullis from China!" In the meantime, the engine of the most recent BMW G 650 GS comes from the Chinese Loncin.
The questionable reputation
The motorcycle that is currently being offered again at dumped prices in Germany is being built in Brazil. We estimate that the pioneers who now want to import good motorcycles from China will at least have to row against the dubious reputation of the Chinese commodity in the coming three years. But if it soon becomes known how many genuine European and American A-brands 'outsource' part of their production to China, that change can go faster for the better. Oh well; Honda has also known those image problems and see how that ended.
There are more than 130 motorcycle manufacturers in China
Those factories do not have a history of 100 + year like Harley-Davidson. In the eighties and nineties, new manufacturers were added to the bushes. They sometimes built under license, but more often just illegally copied, 'reversed engineered' clones of older (80 years) Japanese light motorcycles.
These Japanese examples were dismantled, re-measured and copied to the last part. They often seemed just real. But the quality was tearing. The average selling price on the local market was, until recently, 285 dollars for a complete motorcycle.
Today, twelve of the factories each make more than 500.000 motorcycles each year. At least 5 manufacturers each deliver more than 1.000.000 motorcycles on an annual basis. About 70% of motorcycle manufacturers are located in Chongquin, where more than 10.000.000 units are made annually. And so what is made there was hardly interesting to us in the west until recently.
The CJ750 side valves
The Chang Jiang - or Chang Yiang - CJ750s were of course always very endearing as descendants of BMW's pre-war R71 and depositors of the Russian M 72s. And in general surprisingly usable. They were used en masse in the army. Fanned army side valves are now - provided they are in 'good' condition - bought back by the factory and rebuilt from existing supplies.
They are then 'new' but can be exported as pre-1975 models, instant classics that do not have to meet any requirements. Importer “MOTORWERK” delivers them, correctly registered and provided with frame numbers, “refurbished”, so “as is” including a 'to do' list of about thirty hours.
It'll be fine
After a few weekends of tinkering, you know your motorcycle through and through and according to the importer you can take it to Poland or the South of France in a jerk. That approach and that statement accurately describe the target group and has since been proven multiple times.
Funny
Just as M72's, Urals and Dneprs are fake BMW's for many BMW enthusiasts, the CJ750's are also 'not real' for fans of old Russian stuff. But it doesn't make them any less endearing.
