The product development process of new mid-size and entry-level motorcycles under UK's Triumph Motorcycles and India's Bajaj Auto are underway, despite delays in finalising the formal partnership. According to senior Triumph officials quoted in a media report, Triumph has already conducted early testing on prototype models under the collaboration. Steve Sargent, Triumph's Chief Product Officer and Paul Stroud, Chief Commercial Officer of Triumph are quoted as saying on the sidelines of the EICMA 2019 motorcycle show in Milan, Italy that both Bajaj and Triumph are close to reaching an agreement.
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The two senior officials from Triumph Motorcycles have reportedly disclosed that testing of early prototypes are underway, although final production-ready models are not expected to be commercially available before 2022, even though the agreement is in the final stages. In fact, the report also states that Bajaj Auto chief Rajiv Bajaj had visited the Triumph headquarters in Hinckley, UK, just three weeks ago. The agreement between Bajaj Auto and Triumph Motorcycles will be royalty-based, in which both the brands will retain their intellectual property rights.
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As part of the collaboration, the two motorcycle brands will develop multiple middle weight motorcycles in the 300-500 cc segment based on a new single engine platform, which will be manufactured by Bajaj at its Chakan manufacturing plant near Pune, but marketed by Triumph in India. So far, there's no word on what exactly the engine displacement will be, but it's expected that the new platform will be competitively positioned to take on the likes of Royal Enfield, which is the leader in that segment in India. Under the agreement, Triumph will sell these India-made motorcycles in countries where it has a sales network, and Bajaj will market them in countries where India's largest exporter of motorcycles has sales operations but Triumph doesn't.
(Source: ET Auto)
