Norton and Zongshen have entered into a 20 year Design and Licence agreement over an all new 650cc twin engine. The 650cc twin engine jointly engineered and developed by Norton and Ricardo has been specifically designed to the requirements of Zongshen and will be Euro 4 compliant. This enables Zongshen to meet current and future emissions regulations, clearly an important step for Zongshen and enables them to continue their phenomenal growth in the global motorcycle market.

The engine and its' IP developed by Norton is specific and exclusive to Zongshen and it is expected the engine will be produced under the ‘Zongshen’ or ‘Cyclone’ brands.

The value of the deal is to remain private, but the initial consideration paid to Norton is in the millions of dollars with an ongoing royalty on each engine produced. The agreement is for a 20 year term, last year Zongshen produced around 4 million engines.


Norton CEO, Stuart Garner commented; 

“It’s a great endorsement of our new 650cc engine platform and shows the high level of engineering expertise we have here at Norton. Working with Zongshen going forwards will enable them to deliver high quality low emission engines compliant to current global standards. The commercialisation of our IP is a key area for Norton and we will be investing the substantial revenue received back into our skills, training and engineering capability, thus ensuring long term sustainability to our British made Norton motorcycles here in the UK”