I hate it when this sort of thing happens, when the German bloke, Joe Seifert bought the Norton name and started making a few little bikes with Norton Deutschland on the tank, it make me feel ill..! But to be called a bike manufacturer and keep the name, he had to build a bike every so many years. He's bought Andover Norton from the BSA Regal Group in 2007, and is very dedicated to making Commando and pre-Commando parts. So that's worked out well.

The BSA Regal group have been making badge engineered bikes for years, putting the BSA badge on Yamaha and Rotax engined bikes and they were doing the same with the Norton name on 250cc bikes as they owned it. So this is nothing new, they were probably making a few bikes a year so they could still call them selves a motorcycle manufacturer or they'd lose it. They gave up on making bikes when they sold it all off in 2007, the Norton parts going to Joe Seifert as I've said. It worked out for us Norton boys, so lets hope who ever's bought the BSA motorcycle name does something good with it. To be honest it can't be worse than the BSA Regal Group were doing with it.

BSA Regal Group seem to be very proud of there history that they've sold off...!
http://www.bsa-regal.co.uk/?category=history&page=history

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

Yes, Regal did seem to be overly proud of the history of BSA...

A company name they purchased and then used to infer that BSA achievments and history were their own...

If they had actually produced the BSA 'Tempest', a prototype which used the UK manufactured Wasp engine in a UK produced chassis they would have been moving more in the right direction perhaps....

Sadly all they managed was the unfortunate 'GOLD SR' Yamaha engined Gold Star parody and a few other machines for which there was no market...

On another note I see Hesketh have gone down the S&S engine route thinking they can still convince everyone it's a British machine...That will be the last nail in that particular coffin I suspect.

Best not to mention the Honda VFR engined 'Ariel' either...OOPS..I just did.

On the bright side there is a new all British bike about to be launched, although into a very niche market....Metisse have announced their new 1000cc twin with their own engine...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

It is called Commerce and only goes to show that Indians value & revere the BSA name more than the British do.
As for BSA - Regal, not the first flea bag company to buy a famous brand name in order to make themselves look a lot bigger better older & more stable than they were.
Their "history" is a little , well Politically Correct rather than factually correct is the best description I could think of.

Now if memory serves me well, didn't Regal end up with limited rights to the BSA brand name but not the winged BSA trade mark nor the pilled arms trade mark due to the purchase of the remains of one of the asset stripped BSA subsiduries ?
Birtley I think It was the heater & boiler mob.

As for the Gold SR.
A very nice bike but never going to sell when you could buy your own SR and all the bits they bolted on to it for around 1/3 to 1/2 of what they were charging.
All the "classic" bits they bolted on could be bought directly from Japan where they had been available almost from the day the SR was introduced.
SR based specials are still the backbone of dozens of Custom Bike shops.
There is a worldwide SR club. They are very popular in Asia and particularly in Japan. I had 7 of them which I rode over a 30 year period when I was a courier.

AS for what would BSA be making now, well judging from what was in Hopwoods Book, transverse multis, most likely all foreign made componants fitted into a locally made frame.

Poore wanted the BSA name to vanish quickly before people started to ask too many question and in a very short sighted decision threw all his eggs into the Triumph basket as Triumph had a better name in the USA where he was hoping to make volume sales.
This was fundamentially wrong decision as in markets where British bikes commanded a much higher price ( most of the Commonwealth countries) BSA had the better name and the lower volumes would have been more in the line with the groups manufacturing capacity rather than going toe to toe against the Japanese for the US market where profitability was marginal and would remain so till a fully automatically built motorcycle could be designed.

As for buying the BSA brand name & using it to launch a new range of motorcycles, a very brave move that is not likely to pay off in the long run.
When the current motorcycle popularity wains, it will be the last cycle.
Electric pushbikes are already competing well against smaller commuter motorcycles. EPA regulations will get tighter & tighter till it is impossible for air cooled motorcycles to comply and liquid cooled motorcycles will be too dear in comparison to small hybrid powered cars.
This leaves only the "image" market and that is fairly small and dominated by a government backed company called HD and without a similar massive marketing campain, you are not gong to sell to the "wanna be lifestyle" segment based on a history that none of them can visualise let alone relate to. " Didn't grandad have one of those BSA thingies that was always breaking down ?"
Add to this the modern youths almost total disinterest in any form of motor ( lowest percentage of under 30's with drivers lisences since WWII ) transport as they live inside their smart phones.
OTOH if the plan is to fill the spare parts market, there might be some short term profits, particularly with old fools like us willing to fork out stupid money for things like petrol tanks or a build it yourself Gold Star from new parts.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

There should be a list of once proud motorcycle brands bought for overseas use

BSA,
Enfield
AJS
Francis Barnett even
Brough
Matchless
Triumph is hardly 100% british

are there more.

I am just surprised the Chinese have not grabbed Royal Ruby.

Can't see the fuss myself,If I were in the market for a new bike, [not in this life] I would not buy it just because it bore the name of a defunct maker.
If the product is any good it will make its own name on its own merits surely?

I were to produce a bike of my own I'd put my own name proudly on it.

I reckon there is a market for a bike called cynical rude old git ;after all there has been a Nut,a Bat, a Jimmy James and a Fanny

['Can't see the fuss myself,If I were in the market for a new bike, [not in this life] I would not buy it just because it bore the name of a defunct maker.']...

I agree...Better for the Mahindra group (or whatever their name is) to put there money into making a decent product of their own with their name on it..They aren't going to fool anyone and as noted, the BSA name doesn't have the kudos it once did..

With the cheap(ish) labour market in India they should comfortably be able to compete with established names if the product is right...

Brand loyalty doesn't feature a lot in the modern market, with a couple of notable exceptions...
I have known a number of people who would buy 'the latest thing' from any manufacturer as long as it was the thing to have and it did the job...

IMO one thing is usually true..in most cases 'Badge Engineering' using defunct names on unsuitable products will usually remove any residual respect for the brand...

As an example remember the comments on this very site when Wassells applied the Hepolite name to foreign manufactured pistons?...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Maybe they will make brand new WD M20s, they are already producing quite a few of the components.

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

There was a quality German maker called VD, I haven't noticed anyone queueing up to get that!

The BSA Regal Group do still use the winged BSA logo. I don't really understand how multiple companies can use the same name but I expect the Indian company have bough the rights to the name in India etc and will have to pay a percentage on any bike sold in the UK.?

I used to get on well with Nick Hopkins when he ran Andover Norton and I know that's how it worked when BSA Regal owned Andover Norton. If they sold anything to Europe, Joe Seifert would get a cut as he owned the name there. Now he's bought Andover Norton, he probably pays his company in Europe royalties when parts are exported

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

Because a company gets broken up and all the divisions have rights to the name.
BSA is used by
Raleigh or whoever bought them out and they still sell BSA pushbikes
The Guns division is still making air rifles ( AFAIK )
And whoever bought the guns division sells sights and scopes under the BSA name.
Whoever ended up with Ransoms lawnmowers still has the rights to put BSA on the side of their engines.
You can still buy BSA tools in particular BSA taps & dies, die nuts & thread chasers.
Who ever bought up the powder metallurgy division off Poore still sells BSA branded sintered bronze filters.

VW owns the name Rolls Royce in the UK, Ireland, Canada & most of Asia but BMW owns the name in Europe & North Amercia
Thus BMW make Rolls Royces in Germany & sell them in Amercia while VW makes Bentleys in the Rolls Royce factory.
Then when it comes to old parts they finally came to an agreement so I buy a new hubcap from Rolls Royce in Crew and it comes in a sealed package labled "Genuine Crew Parts".
But if I buy a set of shocks from Bilstern they come in a package labled "Genuine Rolls Royce Parts"

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

A friend was importing one of those Chinese horror 250's , Star I think was the name. He had just taken delivery of 200 of them ( minimum order ) when distribution rights were purchased by a franchise in Melbourne who then demmanded he pay royalties for using "their" brand name.
Removing the names from the bikes buggered the paintwork so another mate sprayed some "tags" on the bikes to cover the damaged paintwork & they were sold as "graffiti criminals " the learners could not get enough of them.
To these kids , BSA is a brand of skateboard.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

I am not really bothered about these old brand names being used to sell new offerings from overseas; even the AMOC has been saying kind of nice things about the "new" AJS Cadwell, I think in gratitude that an AMC brand has received ANY attention! No, I am more bothered that new higher volume vehicle British brands are not replacing the old ones! But perhaps that is more a sign of the times that national branding of such goods is a thing of the past, as the UK churns out its Hondanissanotas.

I have to say the most common question I get when I'm riding is "Is it real or fake" then you tell them it's original and they go, "Ooooooooh!" :-) So I think even the uninformed know there is a difference between the real thing and a knock off. I do have to admit, I'll cringe when they start making Norton's in Taiwan!

A few years back Mahindra tried to launch here in the states in the farm and garden equipment field. It did not do very well against domestic and Japanese brands. "Putting their own name on it" probably will not work for bikes, either. I think a different name is, in fact, a necessity, although I question the choice of BSA. The only people who even remember that name are OFs like (I presume) many on this forum, including me.

Badge engineering is not new and it certainly is not an Indian or Chinese invention. I don't think India-made REs are doing too badly, in fact, in my part of the world they are doing pretty well. My local Triumph dealer, who is also a RE dealer, is devoting more and more showroom space to RE and less to Triumph. And I don't see the prices of Interceptors and other Redditch-made REs doing anything but rise, despite (because of?) the India imports. I don't think the use of a defunct name has hurt the original brand.

How would we characterize the 500 and 750 Harleys, whose engines are made in India, are they a "foreign" bike or a "domestic" one? Is it "badge engineering" or genuine? At what percentage of foreign-made parts does it switch from one to the other (not 51% because there is no way to determine that). And how do you feel about the W-type Kawasakis, spitn' image of BSA A10? Prices of the copy are overtaking the originals. Drats, too much thinking - I'd rather escape to the shack to do some productive work and not worry about things I can't do anything about.

email (option): jonny.rudge@verizon.net

Its just a name Ian. We have the real thing, real Birmingham-made machines that have stood the test of time and which will never be sullied by any cheap latecomer. Don't fret it. :)

email (option): BSAChris@gmail.com

I've just stumbled across this..! Is this the new BSA Victor? I'm guessing it's just an artists impression but it looks good,I've seen a lot worse looking bikes anyway. Maybe Mahindra will do something good with the BSA name after all...?





http://naikmotor.com/tag/birmingham-small-arms-mahindra

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk