Zongshen has bought a licence to make the new Norton 650 parallel twin engine derived from the British firm’s new 1200cc V4.
Zongshen already makes millions of engines every year. Under the new deal it will produce and use a version of the engine for its own bikes. However, the Chinese-made engines won’t appear in Nortons. The British bikes will use UK-built examples of the engine with a different state of tune.
Stuart Garner, Norton’s boss, has suggested the new engine will power several Norton models. Plans also include a forced-induction, high-performance versio for a fast, lightweight sports bike.
Norton and engineering specialists Ricardo designed the new engine. It is effectively half the firms’ new 1200cc V4, used in the forthcoming V4 RR and SS models. Norton says Zongshen paid ‘millions of dollars’ for use of the engine and will also pay a per-unit royalty.
The Norton 650 announcement in full:
Norton motorcycles announce ‘Design & Licence’ agreement with Zhongshen manufacturing of Chongqing, China.
Norton and Zhongshen have entered into a 20 year Design and Licence agreement over an all new 650cc twin engine. The 650cc twin engine jointly engineered and developed by Norton and Ricardo has been specifically designed to the requirements of Zhongshen and will be Euro 4 compliant. This enables Zhongshen to meet current and future emissions regulations, clearly an important step for Zhongshen and enables them to continue their phenomenal growth in the global motorcycle market.
The engine and its’ IP developed by Norton is specific and exclusive to Zhongshen and it is expected the engine will be produced under the ‘Zhongshen’ or ‘Cyclone’ brands.
The value of the deal is to remain private, but the initial consideration paid to Norton is in the millions of dollars with an ongoing royalty on each engine produced. The agreement is for a 20 year term, last year Zhongshen produced around 4 million engines.
Norton CEO, Stuart Garner commented; “It’s a great endorsement of our new 650cc engine platform and shows the high level of engineering expertise we have here at Norton. Working with Zhongshen going forwards will enable them to deliver high quality low emission engines compliant to current global standards. The commercialisation of our IP is a key area for Norton and we will be investing the substantial revenue received back into our skills, training and engineering capability, thus ensuring long term sustainability to our British made Norton motorcycles here in the UK”
Please note; Norton will continue to hand make ALL of its’ own Norton engines here in the UK at its’ Donington Hall factory.
