We can call it as best is using the descriptive labels that occur to us, similar to “Expansion of globalization”, “Triumph of Modernity”, “Law of supply and demand” either “Business with low profitability”among others. It doesn’t matter as we want to define the matter, but the reality is that, the so -called Niche brands are disappearing at the same speed that Marc Márquez approaches his ninth title of world champion, the result of this type of economic synergies within our globalized world economy.
The last victim of this Panorama Assolier has been the British CCM Motorcycles, a whole British emblem of the two wheels and representative of what we call “motorcycles with soul.” Because if we summarize we talk, everything is limited to that precisely: to manufacture frames that offer more than those that the main brands manufacture as churros, destined to meet the mobility needs of the bulk of the population.
The niche brands relegated by the market designs
Undoubtedly, this is not a criticism of the latter. The market, for the benefit of the motorcyclist, must have the maximum possible alternatives among which to be able to choose. It is logical that not everyone wants or can buy a mount of a niche brand. We already know that the needs and tastes are like asses, each one has their own. But the main theme of the matter does not focus on that precisely.
Here we do not talk about the final choice of the client, rather of how current market techniques have ended up phagocytizing those small brands that, until now, offered an emotional plus increasingly difficult to find in technological and efficient current motorcycles. More than one will be wondering, isn’t that what we all look for on a motorcycle?… It’s not going to be.
There are many bikers (we must recognize that less and less) that in addition to a motorcycle being efficient, versatile, reliable or lasting, we need that it offers us something else. That extra point is in totally intangible and not perceptible aspects by many other fans, but that ultimately make this type of motorcycles something different and exciting in equal parts.
However, in recent years, this emotional section has been gradually eliminated to give way to a series of concepts in which it prevails, above anything else, one in particular: the commercial profitability of the brands. Making this this premise, it is unquestionable that the so -called Niche brands start from the beginning with an abysmal disadvantage to the rest of the actors that make up the market and their increasingly inflexible rules.
The final consequence of this scenario is the bankruptcy announcement, or creditors’ contest, of true emblematic signatures true referents in terms of design, manufacturing quality or a marked idiosyncrasy, this fruit of years of work, sacrifice and improvement in the general technique of development of each and every one of its models. In short, small engine oasis that offered their customers much more than the simple acquisition of a simple motorcycle.
In many of these cases, in the past, having a framework of such legendary firms such as Bimota, Buell, Husaberg, Horex or the aforementioned CCM, was synonymous with possessing something, the less, totally different from the rest. We don’t even talk about those specialists in the sector that literally shaped the dreams of the most inveterate oil.
For example, with the manufacture of special chassis for certain models, giving rise to unique mounts with totally different configurations between them. This is the case of firms as legendary as the Italian Magni, or Egli Motorcycles. The latter, based in Bettwil, Switzerland, threw the definitive closing in 2023 after more than six decades of activity. In this case, according to the owners of the company, the reason was the impossibility of finding a successor that continued with the business.
With luck, some of these niche brands end in the hands of large business corporations, such as Bimota, now in the hands of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. However, in this transition some key aspects are usually left along the way that, once, were responsible for making a difference within the competed motorcycle sector.
Without leaving Rimini’s firm, of which you can know its history in detail in our special article “50th anniversary of Bimota: half a century of pure crafts”, in their previous stage, before being part of the Japanese company, they made use of engines of different brands with which they assembled the range of models that marketed: Ducati, Suzuki or Yamaha, were among these companies. That has directly disappeared in this new stage of the brand.
In short, we are before the end of an era within the world of two wheels, a quite widespread opinion among journalists in the sector. I recently listened to a competition podcast (not to find out the boss), where one of the participants defended very well the future of the motorcycle market for the coming years: “Low and half -ranges will be all Chinese” And he pointed out that Japanese, European and Yankees, perhaps they could fight for the premium market, with prices from 20,000 euros.
With this accurate analysis one perfectly understands that the future of the so -called Niche brand is practically sentenced. This homogenization of the market leaves little or no margin to those intangible aspects that we mentioned before, and that should form the design of a motorcycle. On the other hand, something truly unusual when, historically, the latter was precisely synonymous with many of them, something that has unfortunately happened to history.
