The Benelli BN 251 will bring the company the volumes not only in India but in several markets around the global. This bike has been made for emerging markets like ours.
You read it first on MotorBeam. Benelli won’t launch any products below the BN 251, in spite of the Italian company having a range of products in lower segments. The Chinese owned company entered India in a tie-up with Pune’s DSK Group and will launch five motorcycles in January 2015. All motorcycles are being brought in via the CKD route with local assembly taking place at DSK’s facility on the outskirts of Pune. We brought you news of the Hyosung GD250N and RT250D being postponed but we also learned that the company plans to maintain a premium positioning and the Uno C (150 and 250) don’t fit in with that.
Thus the entry-level offering from Benelli in India would be the recently unveiled BN 251. This motorcycle has been designed keeping the Indian market in mind and when launched in 2016, it will rival the KTM Duke 200. Powering the Benelli BN 251 is a 249cc, single-pot mill which generates 24.5 PS of peak power at 9000 RPM and 21 Nm of peak torque at 7000 RPM. While DSK Benelli are bringing products via the CKD route, in order to make the BN 251 a success, they need to price it very aggressively which means local manufacturing (and not locally assembling) is the need of the hour.
The Benelli BN 251 will go sale in international markets next year (in three colours – red, white and blue) so we will get a good idea about how good this single is soon. While this quarter-litre bike is quite similar to the Duke 200, it carries a much large 16.5-litre fuel tank, giving it a good cruising range. Benelli also has a slew of scooters in its portfolio, including performance models but won’t bring them to India as the company will concentrate on street-fighter motorcycles only. The BN 302 is the most awaited launch from the company as it will be the most affordable of the 5 products set to go on sale in the next couple of months.
