Hero continues their aggressive march on the western motorcycle market; now, they’ve hired one of BMW’s top designers away.
The man in question, Dr. Markus Braunsperger, was head of BMW’s German automobile R&D division, working with the 5/6/7 series and the X3, X5 and X7 models. He’d held many other senior positions there over the years. For a while, he was leader of the motorcycle R&D division as well, and is an avid motorcycle racer.
Braunsperger was hand-picked by Hero vice chairman Pawan Munjal. In his new role, he’ll be working with Engines Engineering of Italy and AVL of Austria and Erik Buell Racing to co-ordinate the Indian company’s design efforts.
Hero’s strides in their R&D come after severing long ties with Honda. With the western manufacturers poised to enter the Indian market, Hero seems intent on striking back by selling newer, better motorcycles in Europe and North America, and has been making many canny moves towards that end, including the purchase of almost half of Erik Buell Racing’s stock. Supposedly, they now have 500 people working for them in R&D.
[…] Of course, they have been making other major moves as well (hiring a big-name designer away from BMW, buying a huge stake in Erik Buell […]