Can The CSC Motorcycle Brand Compete?

Baby Boomers can recall the reputation of Japanese products in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Simply put, Japan produced junk. At least until the Japanese got into electronics. My first portable “transistor” was made by Hitachi, which my father routinely mispronounced as “High-tacky.” He wasn’t slamming the quality or mocking its country of origin, he just figured that the “tach” in Hitachi should sound like the “tach” in tachometer. It was actually a very well made device. About the size of a pack of cigarettes, the radio went everywhere with me, sort of like the iPhone does today

It wasn’t long before Japan was producing and exporting high-mileage, low-priced cars. As the years passed, the quality of vehicles made by Honda, Toyota, Datsun (now Nissan), Mazda and Subaru skyrocketed to the point where the U.S. auto industry took it on the chin. A couple of decades later, Korean car-makers entered the fray and quickly cut the time it took to build a high-quality vehicle.

A similar story unfolded in the 1960s and 1970s in the world of motorcycles. Japanese motorcycles buried the British bike industry by making high-quality, reliable machines.

Which brings us to today.

On the other side of the globe, in India and China, there are numerous companies producing hundreds of thousands of motorcycles every year. These are brands and models that we never see. They aren’t sold in North America. While some Chinese-made scooters have made in-roads, the perception of them harkens to post-World War II items from Japan – poorly-made junk.

So, here’s the question: Can a Chinese-made motorcycle brand cut it here?

Zongshen, which claims to build more than one million motorcycles a year, is trying to to find out with the help of a West Coast company that has a direct-to-consumer sales approach. Azusa,CA-based CSC Motorcycles (for California Scooter Company) is now selling three small, low-cost Zongshen bikes that are being rebadged as “CSC” models.

There’s the RX3 Cyclone, a 250cc adventure touring  model (shown above) that has an MSRP of $3,895.

There’s the TT250, a street legal dual sport that has an MSRP of $2,495.

And, as announced last week, there’s the RC3, a sport bike.

The company’s website declares, ” It’s our fully-faired, fuel injected, counterbalanced, liquid-cooled, 4-valve, 250cc, 6-speed, ABS-equipped RC3, and for a very limited time, we’re offering it to you for only $2895! It comes in four stunning colors and includes a USB and cigarette lighter plug, adjustable front and rear suspension, anodized forks, stainless steel exhaust, LED turn signals, LCD display with two color options, and much more.”

On paper, that sounds like a lot of motorcycle for peanuts.

But will potential buyers balk once they discover that it’s made in China?

As mentioned previously, RIDE-CT & RIDE-NewEngland columnist Victoria Zandonella has ordered an RX3 Cyclone and is hoping for delivery by month’s end. Once it arrives, the website will have more to write about CSC.