The privately-owned Chinese "Great Wall Motor Company" (GWM) started making cars in 1984, yet it has been among the 25 largest automotive manufacturers in the world for the last decade and the company is on a massive roll.
Domestic sales are up more than 20% year-on-year so far in 2024 after selling a record 1.4 million vehicles in 2023 (1.1 million domestically and 300,000 internationally).
It has released 20 new models across its raft of brands (GWM, Haval, Wey, Tank, Poer, and Ora) so far this year, and intends to be selling a million vehicles a year internationally by 2030 (that's 85% year-on-year growth for the next six years).
GWM already exports to more than 170 countries and given that it has 1,000 overseas sales channels already in existence, it intends to utilize its strengths by adding a motorcycle brand into those same sales channels.
Now if you haven't heard of Great Wall Motors, the chances are that you soon will. The global automotive industry has been in a state of perpetual revolution for most of its existence, with the world order regularly changing, so if you need a quick snapshot of the current world order, here's a list of the world's largest car companies by market capitalization.
Great Wall Motors is already bigger than Volvo, Suzuki, Subaru, Renault, Nissan, Isuzu, Mazda and Mitsubishi and its charge up this ladder will get harder from here as the corporations immediately above it are also massive conglomerates that have been built by the motorization of their own countries.
At GWM's annual conference earlier this month, Chairman Jack Wey pronounced, "GWM will attach great importance to overseas markets, increase investment in overseas resources, fully support overseas expansion, and launch products with category advantages, high quality, and competitiveness in various regions overseas!"
Even with all those lofty sales growth goals compounding for the next six years to optimistic sales volumes, GWM is aiming to have its high-end (i.e. luxury) vehicle sales account for more than one-third of all sales by 2030. That goal is perhaps even more ambitious than the sales targets, but GWM has been hitting ambitious targets for long enough for it to become ingrained in the way it does business.
Having the monumental size of the Chinese marketplace behind it, it would not be surprising to see GWM in the top 10 a decade from now.
New Zealand last year became the first sizeable nation to surpass the 1 vehicle per resident mark. The United States has over 900 vehicles per 1,000 people, Canada has 790, and there are 50 more countries that have more than 500 vehicles per 1,000 people.
China currently has 231 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants and a country of 1.5 billion people quickly growing rich.
So don't expect the SOUO S2000 GL to be the sole model in the range for long - the SOUO motorcycle brand will be expected to pull its weight at GWM (despite the Chairman being a long time motorcycle enthusiast) and begin making headway into international markets soon, so there will be more models planned.
Initially, the rumors suggest that the EIGHT will be sold in different guises, much like Bugatti built its range around the omnipotent W-16 engine.
Hence, we're likely to see a few variations of motorcycles using the awesome eight-cylinder motor as the central focus, such as the Honda Valkyrie Rune.
Not surprisingly, all the focus and the easy story for the global media has been on the company's first bike, a technological tour-de-force powered by a two-liter, flat-eight running through an eight-speed DCT transmission. Those are numbers we have not seen the likes of before in a motorcycle.
No power figure has been quoted for the engine, but when you consider it has eight high-efficiency 250cc cylinders going about their business, and a Moto3 race bike (250cc 4V DOHC) with near identical specs can produce 60 horsepower, then there will be no problems achieving almost any figure required.
The LCD instrument cluster suggests that the SOUO S2000 GL isn't aiming to be too outrageous in its first incarnation, but the 240 km/h speedo does seem incongruous given that learner motorcycles with 250cc single cylinder engines produce 30+ horsepower (8 x 30 = 240 hp).
Having tested both the BMW 's K1600 6-cylinder and Triumph 2300cc triple, I'm wondering just how much more mid-range a motorcycle can deliver. It won't matter because it is an eight cylinder motorcycle and it is a seemingly winning move in the game of motorcycle one-upmanship that has been played for decades as manufacturers have attempted to gain a useful edge in public perceptions.
We can't wait for the next chapter.
