A renowned name in the Chinese two-wheeler industry, Chand Jiang motorcycles had been producing military-style sidecar outfits based on WW2-era BMW R75 designs for decades. They are often erroneously referred to as BMW "replicas" when in fact, they are derivatives of the IMZ M-72 Russian motorcycles.

Recently, however, the manufacturer had to cease operations when the brand was making the production of the old 750cc, air-cooled boxer twins due to local emission rules flouting. They had to abruptly stop production since the firm was left without a product.

Now, with the help of CFMoto, Chand Jiang is launching a new outfit based on the proven CFMoto 650cc parallel twin and is an uncanny copy of the Triumph Bonneville Bobber.

We’ve been seeing a number of motorcycle designs being copied by Chinese manufacturers, and the latest one is from the British maker, Triumph. There are no prizes on guessing here since the east loves taking cues from the west and the Bobber has become the favorites here with us.

Calling it a “pure Bonneville hot rod” the British manufacturer captured the American way of the ‘30s when they launched the brutally beautiful factory custom Bonneville Bobber last year. With the Chinese obviously lacking anything called as imagination, naturally took this and made a motorcycle with it with ever so small changes.

Calling it the CJ650, this will have attached to a sidecar eventually, but right now, these pictures taken off the factory floors show the uncanny resemblances. The Bobber style floating seats, high rise handlebars, teardrop fuel tank, extended swingarm and many other bits that seemingly looks and feels like a cut-price Bonneville Bobber.

There is, however, a possibility that the CJ650 might get a mudguard and will look more like a conventional cruiser model similar to what the CJ750 looked. The bike also gets traditional swingarm with shocks mounted instead of the sophisticated monoshock rear suspension

Closely resembling Kawasaki’s ER-6 parallel twin, CFMoto’s 650 engine punches out 70hp which is close to the Bobber’s 76 hp engine. But the former loses out poorly when comparing the puny 46 lb-f to the high torque Bobber engine’s 78.2 lb-ft.

And, of course, don’t expect it to come anywhere close to Triumph’s quality of work, fit and finish. But that said, the CJ650 doesn’t look bad either. I, for one, definitely wouldn’t mind trying the spoke-wheeled, retro Chinese machine even though they have been sketched out of the Bobber drawing boards.

Reference

Triumph Bonneville Bobber