Chinese motorcycle manufacturer QJ Motor has built a name for itself thanks to its growing popularity across Asia and multiple Europena countries. The brand, which, similar to other Chinese marques, tackles the market from a budget-focused approach, offering similar levels of performance as its mainstream competitors, but at a fraction of the cost.
As it would turn out, QJ Motor’s initiatives have bore much fruit in the form of Benelli’s motorcycles, which continue to perform well sales-wise in the global market. QJ Motor’s massive manufacturing facility in China, as well as its estalished quality standards have garnered the brand partnerships with some of the industry’s top players. As some of you would know, QJ Motor has been working with MV Agusta for some time now, and is a major contributor in the Italian manufacturer’s Lucky Explorer adventure range of bikes.
That being said, the Chinese manufacturer has just released a new model in its home country of China called the GS550, and it’s a pretty good foreshadowing of what the upcoming MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 5.5 has in store for us, at least performance-wise. Furthermore, unlike the Lucky Explorer, the GS550 takes the form of a sportbike, and a rather good-looking one at that. Before diving into the performance details, let’s first talk about the GS550’s styling.
Despite being a rather small, beginner-oriented model, it’s nice to see that the GS550 gets some premium touches that really set it apart from the other bikes in its class. For starters, it has a sleek, sporty fairing complete with winglets. QJ Motor ups the ante in premium touches with a single-sided swingarm, which further adds to the GS550’s sporty, race-inspired aesthetic. The GS550 is more than just a pretty face thanks to some premium hardware, too. Suspension duties are handled by KYB hardware, and similarly, Brembo supplies the bike’s braking components.
Now onto the juicy bits. From a performance standpoint, the QJ Motor GS550 packs a 554cc parallel-twin engine, presumably equipped with dual-overhead cams and liquid cooling, as it churns out a rather healthy 57.2 horsepower and 37.8 ft-lbs of torque. Given these specs, QJ Motor claims a top speed of 180 kilometers per hour, or 113 miles per hour. These respectable performance figures are complemented by a suite of techie features such as keyless ignition, a full color TFT display, and smartphone connectivity.
