First the English and then the Japanese...

When it comes to motorcycles in Sri Lanka, we are looking at the end of another era. Now we are looking at the gradual phasing out of Japanese motorcycles, their presence in the streets replaced by Indian and Chinese bikes - just as British and other Western makes were phased out by the Japanese since the 1960s.

This phenomenon began to gather momentum in the late 1990s and has gathered so much steam that the new South Asian and East Asian industrial giants are steamrolling Japanese bikes out of their way. In another twenty, or even ten, years, are we going to see any Japanese bikes at all on our roads?

It's tempting to compare this situation with what happened to British and other Western motorcycles forty years ago. They couldn't face the competition from cheaper, more attractive Japanese imports. The racing Norton singles were thoroughly beaten by the new Honda Dream twins. Import restrictions made new Japanese bikes hard to come by, but the post-1977 liberal economy opened the floodgates. In Sri Lanka, Triumphs and the like can only be seen in the hands of enthusiasts.

But you have to be careful making facile comparisons. The fact is that the British (and many West European manufacturers) stopped making motorcycles altogether, as their customers abandoned them in droves to buy flashy new Japanese imports.

They didn't stop voluntarily, of course. Unable to sell enough bikes, they went bankrupt. By contrast, the Japanese motorcycle industry today is thriving. Indian and Chinese bikes sell well only in third world countries, and they have no offerings when it comes to big multi-cylinder machines, racers and dirt bikes.

Undoubtedly, these will come along one day (a Chinese dirt bike is now on sale in Sri Lanka) but there is an important factor to consider before jumping to conclusions.

The Japanese managed to beat the rest of the world in the 1950s and 60s not only because their bikes were flashy and cheap. They were also well-built and technically advanced. Otherwise, low prices alone aren't going to sell motorcycles in huge numbers.

When it comes to Indian and Chinese bikes, one can argue that some models are technically advanced, with aerodynamically well-designed bodies and engines providing great fuel efficiency (the factor which has made them dominate the market more than anything else). But no one can claim yet that any of these bikes are well-built. They don't age well and fall apart all too easily.

By comparison, early Japanese bikes were well-constructed. Of course, they were lighter than their British counterparts, but they had more features (such as turn indicators), higher revvying-engines which didn't leak oil. The Japanese put great care into building their small-capacity machines, because these formed the basis of their world-wide domination later on.

It's these small bikes I wish to talk about. We know about the Honda Cub and how it revolutionalised two-wheeled transport for the average person (the Hero Honda engine is based on the Cub engine, and Chinese are churning out Cub clones). But the Japanese built other small motorcycles which were more exciting to ride. The idea was to discover the enthusiast in the lower segment of the market and give them something exciting to ride, a possibility hitherto available only to those who could afford big, macho bikes such as the Triumph Thunderbird or the Norton Dominator.

Imagine having twin carburetors on a 90cc bike. This is what Yamaha did with their tiny LS2 in the 1960s. This two-stroke, had a 97cc engine which produced 10.5 bhp - in other words, more than a litre for every 100cc. With its 5-speed transmission, it had a respectable top speed of 109 kmph. It also had twin carburetors, something unheard of for such a small bike back in the 1960s.

Before this, average bike owners could only dream of owning twin carubettor machines. The smallest British machine with twin carbs back in the 70s was the 750cc Triumph Trident, and who could afford one of those? And the same was with the cars. Someone I know recently bought a small, 1970s Toyota with a twin-carb engine. It delivered 40 mph in the original state. This man switched to a single carb for greater economy, and the car still goes quite fast. It was an inexpensive car to begin with, and this man bought it last year for Rs. 50,000.

The British MGs too, had twin carbs. How many people can afford one, then or now? The point is that it's the Japanese who put sophisticated technology at the doorstep of the ordinary man, both in cars and motorcycles, and this is their real contribution to the motoring world.