Lifan has a 400cc…should I say 399cc? For marketing everyone rounds up to the next whole 50mL, maybe they should have a rule about that? The international council for rounding off?
400cc

250cc

I’ll take that engine in a café racer….you can have the cruiser it’s just not for me.
I also would take a 250cc V-twin less the shaft drive if you cut the price by a grand. I’d like it to look shamelessly like the HD XL1200. That 250 is actually a 249cc engine…but only has 18.5hp the 400cc has about 28hp.


So there are potentially two bikes I am personally fine with 18.5 hp and I’d like the bike for around 2K MSRP and then the 400 for around $3K MSRP if I decide to move up a notch.
I could sell them on the net and they could be HD’s a XL250 and an XL400 and dropped shipped to your local Harley Dealer. They would get $500.00 for every bike they prep and then charge the customer $150.00 to register them.
So I as a customer would pay for shipping and that could be $250.00, then the dealer gets the bike and hands it over to me with a owners manual and a signed off check list and warranty agreement. Then it’s a matter of quality and reliability. It’s a matter of the dealer having access to the parts when and if they need them. It’s matter of support more than displacement.
The bikes may be selling better in the UK and may be only in the UK for that mater because of geography it’s an island and really not that big of one. Here they have 50 states the person that can and will service it is were?
Would you buy a bike that was sold and serviced in Germany if you lived in France? Comparatively speaking having one or two established dealer in the England is like have one or two in a single US state and with population density they get centric easier.
The HD dealer could use the bikes for their driving training courses, the Buell Blast is now gone. They could use the bikes to feed the higher line bikes, everybody gets caught up in the bigger better faster game.