WE'VE seen plenty of bikes with features 'inspired' by others, or even with styling that's dubiously similar to rival machines, but this is taking it a bit too far.
So why are we showing pictures of a Ducati 1198 and Streetfighter with this story? We're not. They're new models from Taiwanese firm National that just happen to look near-identical to two of Italy's most famous machines.
Called the “Sport Bike 350” and “Street Bike 350”, showing just as much imagination in naming as in the styling department, the two machines are rather less similar to their inspiration under the familiar-looking skin. An air-cooled, 343cc parallel twin powers each bike, claiming around 33bhp so we're not expecting Ducati-style performance to accompany the looks. The chassis on each actually looks more like something you'd find on a Kawasaki ER-6 than a Ducati.
We're guessing it's pretty unlikely these will ever be sold in Europe.
