Norton Motorcycle and Zongshen 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 for Zongshen and will be Euro 4 compliant. The engine, developed by Norton, is expected to be produced under the ‘Zongshen’ or ‘Cyclone’ brands.
“It’s a great endorsement of our new 650cc engine platform and shows the high level of engineering expertise we have here at Norton,” said Norton CEO, Stuart Garner. “Working with Zongshen going forwards will enable them to deliver high quality low emission engines compliant to current global standards. The commercialization 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.”
The value of the deal was not disclosed, but the initial consideration paid to Norton was in the millions of dollars, according to the press release, with an ongoing royalty on each engine produced. Last year Zongshen produced around 4 million engines. Norton will continue to hand build all of its own engines in the UK at its Donington Hall factory.
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