Imagine you’re an established giant in the global automotive industry and you want to spread your brand from four wheels to two. How do you make a splash? In the case of the Chinese group GWM (Great Wall Motor), the answer is to build a set of eight-cylinder motorcycles that can outperform even the ultimate exponent of luxury on two wheels, the Honda Gold Wing.
Last year, rumors and test images of a pair of eight-cylinder motorcycles began circulating in China, one resembling the Gold Wing and the other a cruiser reminiscent of the old Honda Rune, but now we’ve had the first semi-official contact with the machine, through a video posted on social media by GWM’s chairman, billionaire Wei Jianjun. In the footage, he shows his research and development staff a new Xiaomi S7 electric car that he has been given (it’s Xiaomi, the smartphone brand, that is now dedicated to cars). But in the background – carefully positioned to be filmed and with the cover partially pulled back – is a finished copy of the future eight-cylinder tourer. Around the same time, Jianjun posted a clip of the engine sound on social media that was interpreted as belonging to the motorcycle.
With the Beijing Motor Show kicking off on April 25 and this increase in publicity, it’s not a huge leap of logic to suggest that the first GWM motorcycle could make its debut at the event.
It is unlikely that the bike itself will be used under the GWM brand, which already has several domains. The GWM name is used on pick-up trucks, while the company uses the Haval and Tank brands on its SUVs, the Ora brand on its electric cars and the Wey brand on its luxury people carriers. The bikes are expected to have their own distinctive brand name when they are officially launched.
Of course, with the new eight-cylinder machines now all but confirmed for production, we went digging through the patent records to see what information there is. It turns out that Great Wall has filed several patent applications for elements of the bikes. The images accompanying the patents clearly show the eight-cylinder engine, with a design that takes inspiration from Honda’s Gold Wing, but raises the bar in several areas. The engine’s capacity is believed to be around 2,000 cc, slightly more than the 1,833 cc of the current Wing, and of course it has two extra cylinders, but the layout – with the transmission mounted underneath the engine to keep the assembly shorter than it would otherwise be – is practically the same. Like Honda, GWM intends to use a semi-automatic dual-clutch gearbox on the bike with a shaft final drive.
We’ll be interested to see where GWM’s plans for motorcycles go. It’s a company that has no shortage of funds (Wei himself is listed by Forbes as China’s 13th richest billionaire, with a fortune of 12.2 billion dollars) and huge R&D and manufacturing resources. Although the huge flat-eight tourers and cruisers may not be big sellers, they are an ideal product range and instantly outsell rival Chinese companies, many of which are just starting to launch their first four-cylinder bikes.
Source:https://www.cycleworld.com/motorcycle-news/great-wall-motor-eight-cylinder-motorcycles-coming-soon/