It won’t have escaped your notice that the number of Chinese manufacturers are swelling at an exponential rate in attempts to capitalise on the growing domestic market for customers looking to trade up from their scooters and urban runarounds.
However, it also won’t have escaped your notice that many are doing so with a bit (trans: a lot) of inspiration from existing models, so much so the ‘Chinese copycat’ has become something of an eye-rolling regularity of shameless proportions.
It’s an issue that has ended up holding back several companies that are legitimately trying to promote their original wares in foreign markets with only the likes of CFMoto and Voge making any notable headway in the European market for larger engined models.
However, the tide is coming increasingly faster as Chinese firms become more confident in their own abilities for original design with the likes of Benda and Zontes presenting some interesting creations in recent months.
Now we have Jedi Motorcycles, another upstart attempting to shift perceptions that China isn’t just planning to - fittingly - launch an ‘Attack of the Clones’.
The firm has just revealed its latest new model, the Jedi FR 750, a roadster with its own handsome design language of softened edges, LED headlight and bodywork that leans into a neo-retro theme.
Even more unusually for a Chinese firm, though the FR 750 doesn’t come with an entirely in-house engine, it hasn’t been licenced for another company.
Instead, the 730cc twin-cylinder unit - which produces 81PS at 7,500rpm - has been developed and constructed by Swiss company Suter, otherwise famed for its MMX 500 two-stroke and World Championship winning Moto2 chassis.
Throw in Pirelli tyres, KYB suspension, a full TFT dashboard and Brembo brakes and the FR 750 makes a very convincing case for itself on paper, more so when you consider its price equates to around £5,500.
It’s not the only model from Jedi to make a bit of an impression either. It currently offers the handsomely-designed and well-equipped Sport GT tourer with the same 750cc engine, plus some pint-size tourers and cruisers.
Then there is the Jedi KR750 Vision, a concept revealed last year that received a surprisingly warm welcome from you out there when Visordown reported on it last year. Packing that same 750cc engine, the KR750 Vision is a genuinely attractive, svelte mid-size sportsbike that appears a bit like a smoothed out KTM RC8 to us.
As for where Jedi has suddenly sprung from, well it was founded primarily to produce motorcycles to supply for the Chinese police but is now moving into - as its website terms - ‘civilian products’. Even then, it’s an unexpectedly impressive leap from supplying wheels towards the policing of the ‘People’s Republic’...
