20/04/2025

Contributing Editor Keshy Dhillon / keshy@piston.my Editorial

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SUNDAY | APR 20, 2025

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X-Wedge coming soon with premium motorcycles without exorbitant pricing Rebel with a cause

Such premium X-Wedge showrooms will also be available in Malaysia soon.

The detailing of the X-Wedge bikes is not as intricate as a Harley but impressive no less.

WHILE some automotive manufacturers stick by the adage, “take the best and make it better”, others go by “take the best and make it cheaper”. That is particularly true for manufac turers and brands from China. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, because based on what we experience from a recent trip to China, taking the best and mak ing it cheaper just means that more people have access to great motorcycles. During the trip, hosted by MForce Bike Holdings, we visited plenty of manufacturing plants, and one of them makes the motorcycle you see here, known as the X-Wedge. If you have never heard of X-Wedge before this, fret not, neither had we. But that is exactly what made discovering the brand and riding their motorcycles so special, because they are quite good at what they do and the world deserves to know more about them. X-Wedge is assembled by a subsidiary of the Huansong Industrial Group which is based in Chongqing, China and who have been in business since 1988. The company which is called Hisun, also produces other small capacity motorcycles and ATV’s and distributes its products all around the globe. Interestingly, all X-Wedge prod ucts are not designed in-house but are instead designed by a design house called Kiska. Kiska is an Austrian company that has also worked on other motorcycles particularly from CFMoto as well as Husqvarna. In fact, the entire brand communica tion campaign for CFMoto and the Husqvarna Norden 901 was put together by Kiska. So this is a company with a huge amount of

experience in the motorcycle industry. MORE ABOUT X-WEDGE The X-Wedge started life as an engine con figuration than a brand. If you follow the motorcycle industry, you would probably be familiar with S&S engines. The S&S stands for Smith and Stankos, the

last names of the founders of the company which traces its roots back to 1958. Today, and over the past cou ple of decades, S&S engines are common among custom motorcycles and Harley Davidsons.

X-Wedge will also offer a full range of premium accessories.

But the X configuration started out as a power upgrade for large displacement motor cycles, in particular cruisers from America. In S&S’ own words, the engines are “designed to offer proven performance and reliability”. Fast forward a few years, Hisun motors approached the aforementioned Kiska to “re-imagine” X-Wedge as a brand. To cut a long story short, that is how X-Wedge went from a simple engine configuration to becoming a brand. Imagine, Honda’s VTEC or Toyota’s VVT-I being introduced as a third-party brand independent of their manufactur ers. That is basically how X-Wedge came about.

The Vanguard VT2000 is a trike without the hefty price tag and will also be launched in Malaysia.