28/03/2025

Contributing Editor Keshy Dhillon / keshy@piston.my Editorial

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FRIDAY | MAR 28, 2025

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Buttons and controls have a good feel to them.

Budget friendly Voge DS900X makes adventure riding accessible to everyone Digital instrument cluster is easy to read.

You also get a keyless start system.

█ BY KESHY DHILLON

Davidson collaborates with QianJiang to build the X350 and the X500. We recently visited China at the invitation of MForce Bike Holdings, the local importer, assembler and distributor of several brands including CFMoto,SYM, Benelli, QJMotor and a host of other brands. We visited a few factories but for this article we will focus on Loncin Holdings. Who is Loncin? The company has been around since 1993 which is when it developed its first motorcycle engine.

BMWs and make them more affordable for the masses to enjoy. And it has worked brilliantly! Since the brands introduction, Voge is already available in over 60 countries with over 1500 retail stores. In fact, Voge boasts a cumulative sale of close to 430,000 units from 2018 to 2024 alone. Enter the DS900X This is the true game changer, not only for Loncin but also for MForce. You would not be wrong to think that the Voge DS900X is basically a watered down version of the BMW F900 which, as mentioned, is produced by Loncin. But it is a lot more than just a watered-down BMW, because it offers almost everything that the BMW offers, is powered by an engine that is said to have 90% of the same components as the BMW, and yet is priced at an unbelievable RM49,998. It was launched in Malaysia in February and MForce already has a couple dozen bookings for the DS900X. That is unsurprising though because after spending some time with it in China recently, we would be more surprised if it didn’t do well. What makes it so good? Besides the fact that it does everything the BMW does but for about a third of the price, the DS900X is one of those motorcycles that seem to have it all. You want a colourised

G650 and so on.

upmarket buyers. The company introduced its own single-cylinder adventure bike back in 2017, and that was powered by the same 652cc,

W HENEVER we buy a new car, a lot of us are under the assumption that the brand that we buy has actually built the car. But more often than not, that is not the case. At a global level, companies like Magna Steyr are responsible for the assembly of vehicles for major brands. Based in Austria, Magna Steyr is an assembly company, among others, and it builds cars for the likes of Aston Martin, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota and others. In Malaysia, there are companies that do that as well, companies like Inokom, DRB-Hicom,

Loncin also produces some BMW scooters, namely the C400X and the C400GT. It produces about two million motorcycles and three million motorcycle

single-cylinder engine that powered the old BMW G650 GS.

It began its journey with the 300AC and the 500R, and ever since then, Voge has been on a march to dominate the motorcycling world. Its modus

engines a year. Not j u s t

operandi ? Transfer everything it has learnt from assembling high-end

UMW, Sime and other conglomerates, whose assembly plants are used to build cars for the likes of Honda, Toyota, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. So when you buy a car, the brand that you buy may have designed it, engineered it, specified it, and even tested it, but the final product is probably built by an entirely different assembly plant. The company would have also trained the assembly staff and ensured that its standards are complied with.

TFT instrument cluster? You got it. You want a bike with cruise control? Sure! You want a big tank and power? Why not? It is simply difficult to fault the DS900X – as far as the spec sheet goes at least. On the topic of the spec sheet,

This is also quite common in the motorcycling industry, especially now with the Chinese juggernaut being capable of producing just about anything the heart desires. CFMoto, one of the greatest motorcycle brands to come out of China, builds motorcycles for KTM. Other Chinese manufacturers like ZongShen build certain models for the Piaggio group while Harley

that, it also produces components for some European car companies as well. Today, the company employs about 10,000 people and has launched its own brand – Voge. The story of Voge Established in 2018, Voge was introduced by Loncin to cater for

Five years later, the company introduced its first motorcycle any by 2005, it had reached an agreement with BMW to assemble motorcycles for the German powerhouse in China. Since then, Loncin has produced well over 35,000 motorcycles for BMW, which includes the twin cylinder models such as the F900R and XR and earlier models like the

let’s get the details out of the way first before we dive into how the bike feels.