Castle Donington-based Norton Motorcycles has agreed a 20-year Design & Licence deal with Zongshen Manufacturing of Chongqing (China) with regard to an all-new 650cc twin cylinder engine — jointly engineered and developed by Norton and Ricardo exclusively for Zongshen — that is Euro 4 compliant.
This will enable Zongshen to meet current and future emissions regulations and therefore continue its rapid growth in the global motorcycle market (
www.nortonmotorcycles.com).
The value of the deal is to remain private, but the initial payment to Norton is millions of dollars, with a royalty on each engine produced. Zongshen produced around 4 million engines last year.
Norton CEO Stuart Garner said: “This is a great endorsement of our new 650cc engine platform, and it shows the high level of engineering expertise we have here at Norton.
“The commercialisation of our IP is a key area for Norton, and we will be re-investing the substantial revenue from this deal in our skills, training and engineering capability.”