Harley-Davidson’s Chinese-Built X500 Debuts At Shanghai Auto Show

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Discover the Harley-Davidson X500, a Chinese-built marvel debuting at the Shanghai Auto Show, with potential to captivate western markets and reshape the motorcycle landscape.

This bike could very well make it to western markets

The made-in-China Harley-Davidson X500 has officially appeared at the Shanghai Auto Show. No surprises here, it seems; it appears to be a slightly different version of the Benelli Leoncino 500, which is exactly what we expected.

Benelli is owned by Chinese manufacturer QJ Motors, and that’s who is building this bike for Harley-Davidson, as part of a joint project through Zhejiang Jisheng Motor Vehicle Co., a company that was set up as a partnership for this purpose. QJ Motors also builds the X350 for Harley-Davidson through this company. That motorcycle was revealed earlier this year, but it’s not coming to North American streets; it’s only being sold as a riding school bike in Canada and the US. Elsewhere in the world, it’s sold as road-legal.

It’s much more likely that we will see the X500 sold as a street-legal motorcycle in western markets, as it’s more powerful, but still usable on an A2 license in Europe. That means it’s going to be attractive to riders who are starting out and might not have a lot of money for a bigger, flashier machine.

Like the X350, the X500 has a lot of orange and black paint on its vaguely street tracker-esque bodywork, similar to the XR1200X Sportster. The liquid-cooled 500 cc parallel twin makes 47ish hp and 34 lb-ft of torque. There’s a USD fork and sidemount shock. the fork is rebound-adjustable and the shock is preload- and rebound-adjustable. However, while that fork might look sporty, this bike weighs 458 lb at the curb, so it’s no Skinny Minny Miller. Fuel capacity is 13 liters.

Front and rear wheels are 17-inchers, and like the 350 the 500 has dual front brake discs (and a single disc in rear); ABS comes standard.

What sort of price might this bike command? Word on the street is a very rough guess of $6,500 if it makes it to the US market.

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