BRAND ON THE MOVE
Catching Up With SSR Motorsports’ Jeff Li And Mel Harris By Jean Turner Photography By SSR Motorsports
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early two decades ago, a pit bike brand called SSR Motorsports was founded by the Li family in Southern California. SSR set out to offer small off-road motorcycles sourced from China through American dealers. The business plan called for affordable models with U.S.-based customer service and parts support. Since 2002, SSR Motorsports has been on a steady growth spree, expanding their offerings to now include full-size dirt bikes, street bikes, scooters, electricpowered bicycles, kids balance bikes and even a UTV. Along the way, SSR Motorsports also picked up the U.S. distribution for Benelli Motorcycles in 2016 — the Qianjiang Group-owned Italian brand with some big releases rumored to be arriving in the U.S. this fall. Now under the direction of General Manager Jeff Li and VP of Operations Mel Harris, SSR Motorsports continues to thrive, even amid the wild ride that is 2020. We sat down with Li and Harris to hear about SSR Motorsports’ expansive line of product, the Benelli line, and their rather impressive dealer network. Li and Harris also talk QC in China, R&D in the States, why SSR took the bold step of entering into the full-size dirt bike space, what might be coming next for the ever-evolving brand that seems to have no shortage of tricks up its sleeve. Give us some background info about SSR Motorsports: JL: We started SSR Motorsports in 2002 with the small off-road motorcycles. And it was started by my dad and my uncle with the idea to bring something in with quality for kids at an affordable price and also to provide good customer service. The only thing we did for about six years was pit bikes, anything from 70cc all the way up to about 150cc at the time. We participated in the
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Mini Moto races in Vegas every year. We were pretty big on R&D at the very beginning. To make sure the bike performed well and held up against all the competition out there. About 2008, the market changed. Pit bikes went down a little bit, so we started to go toward scooters when the gas prices went up. We did 50cc and we did 150cc and it was a same idea — to have something with quality that was also affordable. After that we started to increase the line even more. We got into full-size dirt bikes with the 250s and 450s and also midsize dirt bikes with 150 and 189. In 2015, we also signed an agreement, and in 2016 we became the exclusive distributor for the Benelli brand in the U.S. Since then we’ve brought in the 300cc Benelli street motorcycles, the 600cc and also the 135. Along with that, there’s the two scooters they have, the 150 fuel-injected and the 250 fuel-injected scooter as well. That’s very competitive in pricing and also gives good margins to the dealers. We also have our own SSR line of street motorcycles with the Razkull and the Buccaneers. All the way up to today we still work on new products and we’re looking at about three to four new products a year. So that’s a little bit about us. We’re a company that distributes our sports equipment at an affordable price with good customer service with a lot of attention on quality. SSR is a bit of a sleeping giant in the U.S. Tell me about the dealer network: JL: The dealer network is about 320 dealers in the U.S. So I don’t think we’re sleeping anymore! I think we’re full-speed ahead with enough dealers around that a customer always has an option around them for either to get a new vehicle, see new vehicles in the showroom, and also to get parts and get their bikes serviced.
