maamoot

very sharp looking bike

From that angle it looks like the cheap and nasty CB500.

When it comes to making mid-sized naked bikes Kawasaki have Honda's design team cleaning the toilet in Kawa HQ at this current time.

I wouldn't have a Kawa if you paid me. Watch their mid-sized bike sales figures fall through the floor over the coming year.

Too late , I already sent you a check

Pretty easy fix for this . No helmet , bike is impounded . offender pays a fine for no helmet , pays for the towing fee , pays a fee to get the bike out of the impound lot . offender gets the bike back when he shows up with an approved helmet and does as per above .
Of course this will never happen , the amount of money made for collecting these fines must be astronomical and they are not going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg

Great post , thanks

I have done some research ,With help from a some local industry insiders involved in the Eastern seeboard auto manufacturing industry which is huge and a major local dealer who have been very helpful with information .

Triumph factory 1 &3 are located in Bowin Eastern and Hemeraj industrial areas in rayong .

Factory 1 is the oldest its been running for over 12 years making Parts , such as frames , swing arms mudguards ,fuel tanks , brackets , and machining facilities ,it has paint and plating as well, it also acts as a consolidating warehouse for parts bought in from other suppliers in the Local area and ASEAN which can be sent to other plants or UK .

factory 3 is the newest built 4 years ago and was casting and machining engine parts for Hinkley UK factory,, but now also produces Bonneville twin engines on site for factory 2 built in 2006 which is located in the Amata Nakorn Chonburi free zone and is an assemby line models produced there now are Bonneville and America although Rocket 3 models were assembled there ,some Thunderbird 1700cc models are assembled for Asia as CKD , it has 2 flexi production lines .there is another 8 rai of expansion space available on this site which can be seen from the motorway from Bangkok to Pattaya .

there is also another extension plant under contruction at Hemaraj Bowin which is an annexe of factory 3 unclear what is going to be made in the new building but a lot of heavy machine tools ,CNC and specialist boring machines are on order for this unit ??? more engines ???

Super plant in India is stated to have eventual production capacity of 300,000 bikes a year but so far only new 250/350 twin is scheduled to be primary model

currently hinkley produces all sports triples ,spped 3 street 3 , tourers and adventure model and rockets , and big 1700cc twins and some bonnevilles it makes engines too with many ancillary parts coming from Thailand

apparently all the Thai factories have full BOI approval ,, but bikes produced in the Amata nakorn facility dont have the tax free incentives like Ducati, kawasaki or honda have . The reasons for this are unclear .......it is said that Triumph dont care about the Thai market and that the official distributer /Importer is the problem ,,,,could be true as he used to control Ducati in thailand until Ducati opened their plant here then he was eased out of the distribution loop because he wanted it to remain exclusive ,,which was not the new Ducati policy so they awarded dealerships to new blood with spectacular results .Some of the ''NEW'' dealers are trying to persuade Triumph to change the Thai distribution policy for the Brand

If it happens for instance the Bonneville 895 would come down to around 400k .

It has also been pointed out that indian built machines , Triumph KTM HD, Enfield and others will come under the Asean agreement FTA in 2015 as india has negotiated agreement with the FTA area which should help matters and also bikes made in japan will be cheaper too under the FTA .

Yamaha and Suzuki are expected to announce big bike production in Thailand soon . Taiwanese ancillary parts for motorcycle manufaturers are setting up JV units here as are the Japanese .

BMW are looking at india or thailand as a production site and Apprillia / Motoguzzi have expressed expansionist interest in Asia markets after seeing ducatis success which will require investment and facilities here .

Piaggio are already making bikes/Scooters in vietnam

Expect some exiting announcements over the next couple of years and even more choice and hopefully reasonable prices .

My Thanks to Frank Richter,,Dom Boonprakab...James Sanderson ...Luciano from Ducati and the nice man from the BOI office at Hemeraj and Yai from mityon group .Oh and a couple of souces who asked to remain anonymous for business reasons .

I guess there has been changes since this report ?

http://www.motorbeam.com/bikes/triumph/triumph-to-import-bikes-from-thailand-for-india/

^ Looks like Ducati's on the move at last - making the Monster 796 here, going to make the Monster 1200 here, and probably going to assemble next year's 821 - engine based monster here too. That'll kick some ass... oh forgot the 300 ? cc scrambler.... so much coming... biking in Thailand has never been this good!

This Honda inline 4 looks great too, certainly the best Honda has made in Thailand so far. I'd be surprised if it was more than 375k as that's the price of the Z800. Gotta be less than that, if not a lot less.

Nikster , are you saying they will make the monster with 821 here ? That would be very interesting , the 1200 monster would be overkill for me , 821 would be way more power than I would need already

I read that rumor somewhere, and I thought it makes a lot of sense - why wouldn't they do that? But it's just a rumor so who knows. I'm sure you could find out more if you hit Google ... as for Ducati building bikes here their plan is clearly to assemble pretty much their entire range here, with the exception of super bikes. So I think all other Ducatis are going to be made here eventually, only a matter of time. I was sure they'd make the Hypermotard here end of 2012 but it took a whole year for that to happen...

did not find much in google about it , would make sense but I guess we will see

^ Looks like Ducati's on the move at last - making the Monster 796 here, going to make the Monster 1200 here, and probably going to assemble next year's 821 - engine based monster here too. That'll kick some ass... oh forgot the 300 ? cc scrambler.... so much coming... biking in Thailand has never been this good!

This Honda inline 4 looks great too, certainly the best Honda has made in Thailand so far. I'd be surprised if it was more than 375k as that's the price of the Z800. Gotta be less than that, if not a lot less.

Nikster , are you saying they will make the monster with 821 here ? That would be very interesting , the 1200 monster would be overkill for me , 821 would be way more power than I would need already

will be interesting to see which engine they put in the Monster

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/audi-s-1b-bet-on-the-affordable-superbike-zkc4bFvdQ1ySAqBCIzz6DQ.html

Ducati Phuket just received their Hypermotard and Strada show models at 4pm, so I went to finally have a look. Was ready and willing to put money on it.....BUT didn't. They look really gorgeous. I am 1.82m and 95kg, so rather slightly "oversized". On the Motard I could not flat foot both of my feet, but still was ok. On the Strada I could flat foot both feet.

Now, the big issue is the seat and the seating position for me. I came from Naked for most of my life. And with both bikes I felt i was really pushed into the tank, the seat is very small and my knees and thighs hitting somewhat sharper areas. The Motard seat was very hard as well. There is also no really space to maneuver around. In contrary the KTM DUKE 690 I did sit on was just super comfy....at least for my liking. So....back to the drawing board....dam_n'it.

Pretty much the same for me , wanted to like it but that seat I found brutal in a few seconds , maybe different when you are actually riding but I doubt it . will be keeping my ER6N for a while longer it looks like .

The Chiang Mai dealer has a Hyperstrada and Hypermotard in now for anyone that wants to take a look .

http://www.ducati.ms/forums/92-hypermotard/

I strongly recommend everybody who is interested in purchasing a new Hyper...... 820 to spend many hours on this side before making a decision.

Have fun reading!

Why this site ? Bad reviews ? Good reviews ? Good information ? When you say strongly recommend before buying it sounds like you are sounding a warning , is this your intent ?

LOL, I believe you are asking questions which could be answered by spending 5 minutes on the site.

No warning. Just saying that research is essential before spending a lot of money on a bike. Anyhow, this is just the best Ducati forum around with loads of valuable information.

when you say "strongly recommend before buying" sure sounds like a warning to me . The last paragraph is the way that I would have put it in the first place .

But thanks for the link , you are right lots of good stuff there .

http://www.ducati.ms/forums/92-hypermotard/

I strongly recommend everybody who is interested in purchasing a new Hyper...... 820 to spend many hours on this side before making a decision.

Have fun reading!

Why this site ? Bad reviews ? Good reviews ? Good information ? When you say strongly recommend before buying it sounds like you are sounding a warning , is this your intent ?

I'm sure I'm not the only one to say this, but racing on the street, sohm nam naa.

Sometimes the race is only in the mind of one of the parties. I was riding home at a reasonably spirited pace from my girlfriends place in central Bangkok about 2 years ago on my gsxr. After about 10 minutes I realized some kid on a cbr150 was 'racing' me and performing some pretty stupid moves through traffic to stay close to me. I wasn't interested, so I slowed down to let him by, at which point he tried to undercut a car that was turning left into a gas station (the car wasn't indicating) and heard a sickening crunching noise and saw him fly over the bonnet. He was going around 70kph.

My point being, it's quite possible the Ducati rider was not aware that the drunk in the car was 'racing' him.

Same thing has happened to me a few times . Was on my ER6N and in a bit of hurry , a Thai guy on another ER6N started to race me but I was not interested .( I am 53 and just an average rider at best with a good imagination ) . Anyways there was a break in traffic that I could take advantage of which he could not , later he caught up with me which was not difficult to do, scowled and shook his fist at me like I was cheating , and rode off . Many similar instances here , people thinking they are in a race with you when all your trying to do is get somewhere .

I have never seen a "DVD" player that will play MKV files and I dont think there is such a thing available , if there is it is the first I have heard about it .
What you want and which is pretty much the same difference is a Bluray Player .
A Bluray player can play your DVD + CD + MKV + MP3 + MP4 + just about any other format that you can throw at it . You can put the files on a thumb drive or a portable hard drive or a CD or a blank DVD , some of the new blurays you can stream and network files from your computer as well .
When you go to buy the bluray player , bring the storage device that you plan to use as your source and test it to make sure that it plays .
DO NOT TAKE THE SALESMAN'S WORD FOR IT THAT IT WILL PLAY THE FILE THAT YOU WANT TO PLAY . TEST IT TO MAKE SURE .

I have seen Samsung bluray players on sale for as low as 1500 baht that will do the job . I would go with a Samsung if you can find one for a good price , good luck !

Hire a few thousand dog catchers

Never had a bad meal here and I eat there 3 or 4 times a week .

To Thousandpercent, Re: post # 23

Quote "Anyone with common sense would not be a construction worker in grinding poverty who has to leave the child in order to work for just enough calories to keep the child nourished. Poor people just have no common sense."

What a bizarre post.

The reason why they are construction workers is because of poverty.

There is no social security (welfare) in Thailand (or Cambodia where most construction workers are from).

Their choice of profession is not due to common sense, it is about necessity.

If they did nothing for a living they would not be able to feed the child at all.

Obviously you were fortunate enough to get a decent education and therefore are able to choose how you earn your money.

These construction workers were born in poverty and will live in poverty because there is no escape for them.

There is no reason to look down on someone because of circumstances which are beyond their control.

sarcasm , I guess a good education would cover that as well

Sorry , thought you meant the thaivisa member was getting one here in Thailand .

I would be surprised if Polaris cannot make this work , big company with lots of experience in this field .

The first batch are being delivered to their owners next week. In fact a TV member gets his on Monday.

Any idea of the model and price ?

I would be surprised if Polaris cannot make this work , big company with lots of experience in this field .

I'd like to see a police photo with the Italian victims pointing their fingers at the Thai cops.

Oh please please please , let this happen !

real slow here in Mae Rim

Pretty sure the Nazis did not have much of a problem with Asians , they got along very well with the Japanese