Watch TV long enough, and you’re bound to hear a piece of sound-alike music in a show or commercial. You know, a song that has the same general vibe and sound as some other very popular song, but is just different enough to not be considered musical plagiarism for legal purposes? It’s a strange experience, but you can almost picture some project director telling their music guys “I want it to sound like Beyoncé, only not. Can you do that? OK, good.”
Looking at motorbike-alikes can feel like a very similar experience at times. On the one hand, you have incredibly blatant copies, like this Ducasu 400 or the Jialing CoCo Pony. On the other, you have something that may have started out as a blatant copy, but then got altered just enough to offer something new. Think about the Changjiang V750 Defender, or this CoCo Cub with a sidecar.
Like the CoCo Pony, the CoCo Cub has been made by Chinese motorcycle giant Jialing. Back in the ‘80s, Jialing reportedly had a deal with Honda where it was producing Cubs. At some point, that circumstance changed, and exact details aren’t clear. Still, with the Honda Cub and its decades of fondly looked-upon accessibility solidly remaining as the best-selling motorbike of all time, figuring out why someone might want to copy it is a no-brainer.
Gallery: Jialing CoCo JL125B-10
Around 2020 or so, Jialing introduced the CoCo Cub as a standard underbone two-wheeled machine with a 125cc single-cylinder engine inside. It was good for about 8.5 horsepower, and of course had that magic Cub appeal.
In 2022, Jialing decided to spin CoCo off into its own sub-brand, offering three separate product families aimed at riders with very different aesthetics. CoCo Cub would be the retro line; CoCo Pony would be the classic line, and CoCo Cat would be aimed at leisure and sporty fun.
Falling solidly in line with the concept of “here’s a thing that’s just like a thing you already love, only we’ve put our own spin on it” is the CoCo JL125B-10. It’s essentially the CoCo Cub, only with the addition of a cute sidecar that supposedly weighs about 20 kilograms (or 44 pounds) thanks to the use of lightweight materials in its construction.
For the CoCo Cub’s sake, we hope that figure isn’t too much wishful thinking, because it’s still only powered by a little 125cc engine. While plenty of riders carry pillions (and sometimes whole families) on 125s in a number of countries outside the US, the added weight of a chunky sidecar on top of a person or items riding in it could be extra stressful on that engine otherwise.
Since the launch price was given as 15,180 yuan (or about $2,108 as of October 5, 2023), it’s not at all difficult to see the appeal of a bike like this, provided that it’s halfway decent as a machine. The struggle of having a keenly developed sense of style, but also having no money to express yourself can be difficult. That’s why the ‘cheap and cheerful’ category exists, in multiple languages and markets.
