I'm sure nearly all of us are guilty of copying our classmates' homework growing up. It's an unavoidable facet of childhood – we get carried away playing with our friends after school, that we forget to do our homework. Thankfully, there's always the smart kids who are dilligent with their studies, and are more than happy to "share their blessings" with others.
More often than not, we'd get away with copying our buddies' homework – but what if you copied the homework of two of your buddies and mish-mashed them into one? Well, the result would usually be nonsensical, laughable, or simply absurd. Indeed, this could very well be the case with the Jonway YY400. I'm pretty sure I don't even need to tell you this, but this odd cruiser comes to us from China, a country that has pretty much established its industries by copying tried and tested designs from the US and Europe.
Don't get me wrong, there are quite a handful of truly impressive machines from the Chinese moto industry – especially today. However, the Jonway YY400 simply isn't one of these machines, or at least for me, that is. From a styling perspective, it's clear that Jonway has looked at Harley-Davidson and Indian and said to itself, "what if we get what's cool about these two brands, and put them together in one bike?" Indeed, this is what it did, and the result is a bike that our friends over at German publication Motorrad Online could only describe as an offensive attempt to attract attention.
To start with, some of the intricate embellishments found on Indian's machines are depicted on the YY 400's cylinder heads, alloy wheels, and frame. Meanwhile, the headlight and fuel tank look like they were poorly cloned from a Harley-Davidson. The brand even had the audacity to imitate Harley's tank design with "China Jonway" emblazoned in a similar fashion as that of the Harley Sportster S. If all that's not enough, it seems that Jonway is positioning the YY400 as some sort of adventure cruiser, too, as its render clearly depicts it riding on the sand.
On the performance front, meanwhile, things aren't any more impressive. The bike is equipped with a rather anemic 398cc V-twin with just 32 horsepower. Its performance figures are quite a contrast to the bike's otherwise muscular appearance. On the tech front, we also find rather basic components – run-of-the-mill stuff from Chinese manufacturers. You have your LED headlight, digital display, and USB charging socket all thrown in the mix. The whole package costs the equivalent of just $3,858 USD, making the whole thing seem even sketchier than it already is.
