Triumph has become the latest in a long list of European and Japanese bike brands to tie the knot with an Indian manufacturer to help leverage that country’s low production costs and massive motorcycle market.
The British company has announced a global partnership with Bajaj that will see the Indian company building a range of smaller-capacity machines using the Triumph name.
In return, Bajaj gets access to the Triumph brand and to its bikes, extending its own model range upwards. And it’s a non-equity partnership, so neither firm owns a stake in the other.
Triumph’s desire to break into the Indian market and use Indian production to create a range of smaller models is no secret. It went a long way down the road of developing its own small-capacity (250cc) single-cylinder models before ditching the project in 2014.
The project stumbled largely because Triumph’s efforts to build a massive new factory in India were tripped up by the bureaucracy in the country.
While the bikes were nearly ready to launch before the project was dropped, the factory designed to produce them was never built.
Bajaj is already understood to be developing a new 250cc adventure bike for launch in the near future. Powered by a new engine – perhaps the one developed by Triumph – the bike is expected to be one of a range of new 250cc models.
Bajaj and Triumph are keeping quiet about details of the latest deal, confirming only that it involves brand position and perception, design and development technology, quality and cost competitiveness, and worldwide distribution.
The announcement made no mention of Bajaj’s existing ties with KTM, nor of its deal with Kawasaki, where the Indian firm distributes certain Kawasaki models through its network of dealers in India.
Can we expect the upcoming Bajaj 250 adventure bike to turn into a new Triumph Tiger Cub? Don’t bet against it.
By Ben Purvis