If 2025’s end-of-year motorcycle shows taught us anything, it was that Chinese manufacturers are now serious players in the global motorbike market. Whether under the banner of their own brands, or using acquired names steeped in motorcycling history, there’s some serious engineering and creative thinking going on in China’s R&D departments.

One of the lesser known names looking to make an impact is SWM, the niche Italian brand which is now under the stewardship of the giant Shineray Group, which has come on a long way since their days of producing knock off Suzuki 125s

SWM might not be the best known of historic motorcycle brands but, like Benelli with Qianjiang Motorcycle, part of the huge Geely automotive group, and Moto Morini with Zhongneng, they give the Chinese company an Italian headquarters, with a design centre close to Milan helping them develop machines for European tastes.

What Europeans make of the company’s concept bike, shown over the winter, is another matter. The quirky ‘Transformers’ inspired Bumblebee cruiser showcased at Milan’s EICMA show certainly raised some eyebrows and got people talking about the brand.

According to SWM, the Bumblebee Concept ‘embodies the high-end, racing-inspired spirit of the brand’. SWM started out making trials bikes in the late 1970s, and was moderately successful across various off-road disciplines before going bust in 1984, but the Bumblebee owes nothing to those lithe little dirt bikes.

Whether deliberately or not (we’re going with the former!) the SWM appears to be inspired by its namesake, Bumblebee – the character from the Transformers series of cartoons and films. For those not in the know, Transformers are ‘robots in disguise’ and Bumblebee robot changes into a yellow and black car (usually a Chevrolet Camaro, but sometimes depicted differently) as it fights the villainous Decepticons.

Whether that is relevant to our story or not is up to you to decide, but it might help you better understand what this mad SWM is all about.

It’s a sort of… well look at the picture and decide for yourself. It’s yellow, and black, obviously, with a kind of pumped up power cruiser look to it, like someone’s taken a Diavel or Rocket 3 down to Shoreditch and given a hipster bike builder a sack of money and far out brief. There are semi-knobbly tyres, big cartoon like features and a Harley-Davidson style 1202cc 45-degree V-twin engine. With just 60bhp hauling what’s likely to be over 250kg it’s hardly a performance machine, but it is definitely getting chins wagging.

Under all the cartoonish features appears to be the mechanicals of SWM’s Stormbreaker, a traditionally styled cruiser which very much apes Harley’s old air-cooled Sportster models. It’s a really authentic looking custom bike and one of the few remaining big air-cooled machines on sale today. They’re Euro5+ compliant and on sale in Europe, meaning they could find their way here.

SWM’s presence in the UK is currently tiny, with only Merthyr Tydfil and Newton Abbot dealer Trago2Wheels listed on the company’s website, but we imagine that, like most ambitious Chinese manufacturers, they’ll start making a play globally in the years to come. While the Bumblebee is unlikely to make it into production, has created a buzz (sorry) online and at the big EICMA motorcycle show in Milan – helping raise awareness in what is an increasingly crowded marketplace for new and reborn motorcycle brands.

It wasn’t just the Bumblebee that Shineray presented in Milan. Star of SWM’s 2026 line up was the smart looking Versante 550, a highly-specced A2 licence compliant adventure bike powered by a 494cc parallel-twin engine and which wouldn’t look out of place with the logo of an established Japanese manufacturer on the tank.