Mash Motors is something of an oddity. The French company has been importing Chinese motorbikes into Europe for over a decade, taking some basic designs and rebranding them to meet our tastes. It led to a range of simple air-cooled retros made by Shineray, with capacities from 50cc to 650cc, but more recently they’ve also gotten into the scooter market with the Belena 125 and 300. Now they’re expanding further and going in another new direction, with two new models powered by a liquid-cooled 730cc parallel twin engine
Developed in collaboration with the funkily named Chinese manufacturer Jedi Motor, the range topping GT750 tourer is a reworked version of Jedi’s Kirin 750 police bike. It costs £10,999 and occupies a unique place in the motorcycling landscape. It is joined by a £7,999 sports bike, the K750, which was designed in Italy.
On paper, the engine capacity and price of the GT pitches it against the likes of the Triumph Tiger Sport 660 and Yamaha Tracer 7, but in reality its sheer size and style makes it more of a lower powered GT than a middleweight sports tourer.
Weighing in at a gargantuan 275kg (a R 1300 RT is 281kg fuelled up) the GT750 has the presence of a big tourer, but with just 75bhp on tap. Styling draws inspiration from mega tourers like the now defunct Kawasaki GTR1400 and Yamaha FJR1300, not to mention the RT, with a low seat, integrated mirrors and panniers, big headlights and even metallic side panels which seem to mimic BMW’s distinctive boxer twin rocker covers. It's also got a huge 24 litre fuel tank, so hopefully that generous looking seat’s nice and comfy because, with a claimed fuel economy of around 61mpg, it should be capable of going over 300 miles without stopping to fill up.
All-in-all, we don’t quite know what to make of the new Mash. Big tourers aren’t really in vogue these days and haven’t been for decades, thanks largely to the popularity of adventure style bikes. Only the RT survives as a pure tourer in 2025, which makes it hard to see exactly who the new Mash will appeal to. That said, the spec looks good and it’s no wonder it weighs so much, as it comes fully loaded pretty much everything, with a massive 12.3” TFT dashboard, hard luggage, a generous electrically operated windscreen, tyre pressure monitoring system, front and rear cameras, heated grips, keyless ignition and a heated seat just some of the standard equipment. European components like Brembo brake calipers, Michelin Road 6 tyres (although the promo pictures show Pirelli Angel GT rubber) and Bosch ABS add some class and reassurance to an otherwise largely unknown quantity.
The GT750 is just one motorcycle in a tsunami of Chinese bikes becoming available these days, but the first grand tourer we can think of. Being built initially as a police bike (Mash’s owner’s manual even shows the bike in Chinese police spec, complete with pole mounted blue lights) means Jedi’s design brief was probably quite different to that of pretty much any other motorcycle on sale in the UK today and means it doesn’t follow a typical formula. Touring bikes usually have big capacity engines to give a long-legged ride and, with its low power-to-weight ratio, we are curious to see how the Mash performs on the open road. It looks classy in the pictures, although whether it stands up to scrutiny in the metal remains to be seen. Chinese motorcycles are becoming more commonplace and quality levels have stepped up a notch in recent years, but despite their keen prices and high specifications, buyers still seem hesitant to ditch more reputable brands and their proven dealer networks.
At around 11 grand, the Mash GT750 looks like a lot of bike for the money at first glance, but with the higher performance Tracer 7 and Tiger Sport 660 both a good bit cheaper, and established (and significantly higher performance) sports tourers like the Kawasaki Ninja 1100 SX and Honda’s NT1100 not that much more expensive, it could prove a hard sell with European riders.
The Mash GT750 may not follow the typical blueprint for a touring bike but what it should offer is a massive standard spec with an accessible low seat and an unintimidating ride. It could make for a great day-to-day motorbike, a bit like the old Honda Deauville, and it will be interesting to see if it can gain a foothold in the British marketplace and rejuvenate interest in GT style motorcycles.
The K750 arguably has more universal appeal. Designed in Italy and with engineering input from Swiss company Suter Racing, the sporty twin has more than a bit of Ducati in its styling, not least thanks to the single sided swingarm and minimalist rear end. The K also comes with Michelin tyres and Brembo brakes and, with less weight to haul around, the sports version should be much livelier than its touring cousin. It’s a distinctive looking machine which also finds itself in something of a niche, sitting between A2 licence machines like the Honda CBR500R and bigger and more powerful twins like the Yamaha R7 in a very crowded marketplace.
