SWM Motorcycles comes with a long tradition, originated by great passion and far-seeing technical skills; starting bases of the current Italian Company, that gets in the market with prestigious goals and a range of quality and stylish street and off-road bikes.
THE HISTORY
In the early Seventies, during the now denominated Endurance races, the fabulous Italian 4 stroke bikes started to struggle competing against the more powerful foreign 2 stroke. To face this merging hegemony, two riders and friends with the same passion for off-road decided to build their own motorcycle, establishing SWM, that stays for Speedy Working Motors. In the Rivolta d’Adda headquarters three models were created with 50, 100, and 125 cc Sachs engines that during their racing debut conquered prestigious spots, impressing the audience with their technical features like the rectangular sectioned fork, absolute new in those days, and for the modern and personal designed characterized by the amaranth chassis and the silver accessories that lasted for a long time in the fans hearts.
Since the first appearance, SWM outstand for their competitiveness that allowed to collect prestigious successes in off-road competitions that lasted for over a decade. The international debut was in Spain in 1971, during a race of the European Championship in which Pierluigi Rottigni finished second in the 125 class and Giuseppe Signorelli finished third in the 100 class. That was the start of a reach palmares of titles including the Italian Motocross 125 title won the following year by the Italian rider Afro Rustignoli and the bronze medal conquered in the European 125 Endurance class by Rottigni. These victories made the Italian Company shoot ahead. More victories in the SWM palmares are the conquer of the Six Days Silver Vase, the European Endurance and Kart titles, a Trial world title, and several Trial and Motocross national titles, with a sixth place in Motocross 250 class in 1981.
SWM TODAY
Strategically located in Lombardia (Italy), SWM Motorcycles is a new Italian motorcycle Company inspired by the past, originated from the passion and the technical and industrial competence of Ampelio Macchi and Daxing Gong. Ampelio Macchi, creator of the history of prestigious Italian brands as Cagiva, Husqvarna and Aprilia where he was the technical manager and obtained 51 World titles, 46 with Husqvarna and 5 with Aprilia; Daxing Gong, successful Chinese businessman leader of the majestic Shineray Group that operates in two wheels and four wheels vehicles, industrial products for agriculture and electricity generators.
Two opposite worlds put together by the same vision and the same will of building high quality motorcycles with an Italian soul, identifiable as time goes by, in a state of the art headquarters and with support of an experienced technical staff grown in a territory rich of motorcycle history and driven by a great motivation.
SWM Motorcycles is freshly established, but it shows the know-how of a big Company, founded on a good team of skilled technicians that allows to follow and manage directly inside the Italian headquarters any aspect of the motorcycle creation. From engine to chassis, from electronics to style: everything is designed internally with manic precision and the taste and experience of prepared Italian workers. With a 360° know-how, that starts from design and goes to research, development, product tests, quality control, production, distribution.
Design is made with a deep commitment inside his own Centrostile, furnished with advanced hardware and software instruments to explore newest style concepts and to develop every step of the projects. Sketching and painting, CAS molding, hard and clay molding, 3D printers, wood modeling machines are the accessories that allows us to manage in self-sufficiency all the steps from the initial draw to the definitive maquette. The exclusive design of the new SWM’s is clean, flowing, functional and light. It gets inspiration by the deep brand tradition and by those original stylish solutions that made the brand famous in the past. For example, the Silver Vase model, icon of the Seventies, is equipped with the typical trapezoidal tank restyled in modern key on the new range. A particular care was dedicated to the color choice, to the graphic design and the research of specific materials, with the goal of creating a connection with the traditional models maintaining a pleasant and modern “family feeling”.
Quality without compromise is the guideline of SWM Motorcycles, that has the goal to manufacture technologically advanced but affordable motorcycles equipped with particular strength and reliability. The design and production are exclusively Made in Italy, using parts with the best price performance that have to get through a scrupulous series of tests executed by the SWM technicians, from the sampling to the supplying of the definitive parts for the production. This is an aspect that involves the whole motorcycle, that goes through the experimentation and a series of tests and inspections to guarantee the best component at the best price.
The SWM range has been conceived for an international audience, with an eye on the emergent markets that require good quality and name branded products. The referring market is the European one, closely followed by the Australian one and South American Countries which require similar homologation standards, to successively expand towards the Asians and the North American markets as soon as the proper homologation will be ready. The range will be distributed through a new and widespread international sales network, taking advantage of the synergy with the partner Shineray Group that has been producing and exporting motorcycles for the past thirteen years.
The SWM Motorcycle come back on the market introducing six street and off-road bikes with engine size between 300 and 650 cc, with similar advanced features such as the double overhead cam engine, the injection and Euro 3 homologation. This is the starting point of a wider global project, which sees in a near future the production of 125 cc engine bikes studied to satisfy a young audience and other specific motocross and endure competition bikes. More high impact models will be added to the SWM range in the future.