General Motors and Honda have announced establishment of what is described as the auto industry’s first manufacturing joint venture to mass-produce an advanced hydrogen fuel cell system that will be used in future products from each company. Fuel Cell System Manufacturing, LLC will operate within GM’s existing battery pack manufacturing facility site in Brownstown, Michigan, south of Detroit. Mass production of fuel cell systems is expected to begin around 2020 and create nearly 100 new jobs. The companies are making equal investments totalling $85 million in the joint venture.
Having acquired the rights to the once famous Paton Motorcycle brand, Italian exhaust specialist SC-Project say that they are working on a Paton S1-R 2017 version for Stefano Bonetti and Michael Rutter to race with at this year’s IOM TT in June. The same bike, the Paton S1, will then be available for sale in an approved homologated version for road use in a limited number, built by hand in Milan, where a new Paton Reparto Corse is an ambitious project - the development of a Moto2 prototype.
Mahindra Two Wheelers, the Indian motorcycle manufacturer who bought a 51 percent stake in Peugeot’s Scooter business in 2014, has acquired the rights to the legendary British BSA name from Southampton UK based BSA-Regal late last year.
The MCIA, the motorcycle trade association in the UK, has announced an innovative three-way partnership to make roads safer for riders. It has partnered with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Highways England, the government owned company responsible for running over 4,000 miles of England’s motorways and other major roads. The aim of this “landmark collaboration” will be to “improve motorcycle rider safety” by implementing the recommendations of ‘Realising the Motorcycling Opportunity: A Motorcycle Safety and Transport Policy Framework’ – a white paper that calls for motorcycles and scooters to be included in mainstream transport policy and for rider safety to be consistently factored into national road design.
Legendary sportswear and motorcycle clothing brand RUKKA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its adoption of the RUKKA brand name in 1966. The company can trace its origins back some 66 years in total, when founder Roger Störling started the business in his family’s farmhouse kitchen in Finland in 1950. The company changed its name to Rukka Products in 1966, and in 1981 it became simply Rukka Oy - ‘Rukka’ being founder Roger Störling’s nickname. The flags in the modern-day Rukka logo stand for the letters R,U,K,K,A in the international flag signal alphabet – an homage to the sport of sailing, which once constituted the core of Rukka’s business. In 1990 Rukka became an independent division of the L-Fashion Group Oy, one of Europe’s largest sportswear manufacturers based in Lahti, Finland.
German apparel specialist Modeka celebrated its 70th anniversary with the INTERMOT launch of a CE-equipped ‘jubilee’ retro leather jacket. It is called 'August 70' in honour of August Oberkoenig, who founded the company 70 years ago in 1946.
Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali has confirmed one of the worst kept of secrets - the company is working on a V4 superbike. Citing the engine development made to date in MotoGP, Domenicali said that “we have an engine which is very reliable, very light and compact and has a lot of interesting technology. We are seriously thinking of introducing it to regular customers, because it is a masterpiece of engineering”.
