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I have been following LS Motorsports since I first started following Chinese scooters in 2003. When I first came across them, they were selling inexpensive Geely scooters on the Internet. I corresponded with several people who had purchased scooters from them and they all felt like they had received good service.

As I would visit their website about once a month I began to see little changes taking place. They began introducing their own Diamo brand products. At first I figured it was just a re-branded Geely but was to soon learn otherwise. Then, Diamo products were showing up on eBay, but the strategy was different than all the other sellers. LS would only ship the scooter to a dealership so that the bikes would be professionally prepped before delivery to the winning bidder. I couldn't get Mathu to talk much about the strategy and results, but I can only guess that it was a stepping stone on the road to where they are now. Now, you can only purchase Diamo products through authorized Diamo brick and mortar dealers. LS Motorsports no longer wants anything to do with Internet sales. LS MotorSports is rapidly growing into a major player in the industry with approximately 300 dealers and growing fast.

The only criticism that I can come up with through my experience is that a friend of mine who bought a scooter from LS in the earlier years on the internet, when they were a smaller company, tried to get the valve gap specifications for his scooter and he was told that he would need to go through a dealer. Well, he didn't buy through a dealer and it would seem to reason that they should provide that support. Overall though, my impression of LS MotorSports/Diamo is quite positive.

I was privileged to meet Mathu Solo, President of LS Motorsports at the 2006 Dealer Expo in Indianapolis last February. He was very cordial, knowledgeable and informative. What struck me about him was his unwillingness to say anything negative about his competition.

Diamo has also been involved in charity by auctioning scooters which have been autographed by celebraties and also one auctioned on NFL.Com signed by players and celebraties from the 2006 Super Bowl.

The following is a follow-up interview I did with Mathu about LS Motorsports and Diamo.

Dawg: You have traveled China and Asia extensively researching suppliers. Can you give your impression of the variety of quality of products coming out of China?
Matt: There are only 4-6 real manufacturers in China that engineer and manufacturer their own products including the engines. A lot of factories in China are simply assembly plants. They will buy parts from any supplier in a given month depending on the pricing. That means parts will change a lot and cost will change a lot. Even if a distributor wanted to stock parts from these assembly plants most of them will not match up after a few months because they have changed so much. The 4-6 top manufacturers in China have the capability to to engineer, manufacturer, and test their products. These manufacturer's will test every single unit while other factories will do random test of less than 10% of the products being built. I have seen factories that are simply metal siding warehouses with dirt floors, no assembly lines and workers building product on the floor. With more than 100 factories in China this is more common than expected. The Chinese Government has implemented new laws effective March 1st which restricts a lot of these low quality factories. The new requirements will reduce the number of export companies in China.

Matt: Founded in 2003, LS MotorSports, L.L.C. is the exclusive importer of Diamo scooters and motorcycles, one of the fastest growing recreational product lines in the USA. The Diamo brand was founded on the desire to bring exciting and reliable products to the US market.
The company's warehouses and dealerships extend across the United States. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company's product line has grown to encompass vehicles, parts and accessories. The company�s goal is to be recognized for its exciting products and for providing the best customer service in the business. The staff at LS MotorSports is dedicated to providing professional online and phone support before and after the sale. The company maintains a complete parts inventory and backs its products with a generous warranty.

(Editor's note: That was boilerplate stuff. It gets better!)

Dawg: How do you select your parts suppliers?
Matt: We personally visit the factories. We have a 3rd Party Company that works for us as quality control engineers. They help us evaluate the plants, management, controls and policies, financial stability, and much more. It was important for me to find the companies that had R&D departments that were committed to new products (not just copying Japanese or Italian products). I also looked at the companies to see who they were currently partnered with (some are partnered with Harley Davidson and Piaggio which says a lot about those companies). One of our factories is 100% owned by Yamaha. That factory actually sends their workers to Japan for 6 months of certified training. The factory was actually building Yamaha products while I was there. We require our factories to be willing to purchase specified parts from our vendors (Keihen, US Gates Belts, Yuasa, Sym, Castrol Fluids, PPG Paints, etc...), provide detailed parts catalogues (that cannot be changes without our written consent) and they also have to meet our quality control guidelines and inspections.

Dawg: Can you tell me briefly about your parts department and philosophy of dealer support.
Matt: I can say with confidence that we probably have the largest parts supply for our products in the Industry. We carry every single part down to the nuts and bolts. We try to maintain 10% parts inventory of our annual sales (that is a lot of parts). We have over 10,000 sq/ft of just parts. Our policy is to keep warranty claims below 3% which we have done to date. It took a year of solid work with our factories to improve quality. In the end we realized we had to source and specify the part and components used in the bikes. We also had to hire a professional 3rd party company to work as our quality control and inspection team. As a result we can offer one of the best warranties in the industry. We cover parts and labor because we believe in the product. I am sure there are warranties out there that offer longer coverage periods (ours is a limited 1 year policy but we do allow our dealers to sell a 2 year extended warranty). We have found that companies that offer 2 or 3 year standard warranties have a lot of exclusions. We try to avoid that to give our dealers the best support possible. We have developed a DealerNet which gives our dealers real-time access to inventory, parts catalogues, technical specifications, marketing materials and other documentation to enable them to be more successful DIAMO dealers. I would like to think that all of our dealers will tell you that even if our product was not perfect they could always count on us for support. The Team at DIAMO provides a level of support and service that is unmatched in the industry. Our company is actually a licensed distributor in all 50 states that require certification and licensing. Very few companies importing products from China have actually done this in all 50 states. This allows us to certify our dealers with the State Motor Vehicle Commissions which gives them territory protection and other dealer rights. We have EPA and DOT tested the products ourselves instead of relying on the Chinese Factory. We provide programs for our dealers such as, 1 Year Standard Warranty with 2 Year Extended Warranty, Co-Op Advertising, floor planning, consumer financing, protected territory, no Internet Sales Policy (you won't see DIAMO sold on eBay or other internet sites), products currently in Kelly Blue Book and we should be in the next issue of NADA, and finally, one of the largest spare parts warehouses in the industry.

Dawg: What is the vision for the future of Diamo and if you have any products in development that you are excited about, feel free to give us a glimpse.

Matt: I truly believe DIAMO has the potential to be one of the next great brands in the Powersports Industry. We have focused on quality and service. We never got involved in the China Price Wars. I would rather give up volume to find the best product possible at an attractive price for the consumer. We are already seeing a lot of companies who have not survived the explosive growth from Chinese imports. You can't win on just low prices. Over the next 3-5 years we will see companies eliminated and companies acquired and in the end there will be 3-4 strong companies left standing (at the most 8-10 but highly unlikely) that distribute Chinese Products. Our company focus is long term success by concentrating on quality and service now.
We believe in building a brand. That requires solid dealer programs, great service and support and finally new unique products. I am always looking for new and exciting products. We introduced 4 new scooter models this year with more on the way. We are introducing new 4WD ATVs. We anticipate having a 650cc Sport Bike within the year. There are still a lot of exciting developments for DIAMO to come.