While everyone was expecting the BMW-TVS 300cc bike to come with a twin-cylinder engine, the Indo-German partnership has thought otherwise and opted for a more cost effective single-cylinder powerplant.
BMW and TVS are together developing a new bike that is codenamed K03. The 300cc bike will come in street-fighter, full-faired and adventure versions. The 300cc bike was first caught testing in Germany, and that was a year after BMW and TVS officially announced their tie-up. The company has now patented a wheel design and the rim looks strikingly similar to the one that was found on the 300cc bike test mule. Different components of the bike are being patented which means that its launch is actually not far. The bike will come with a blend of technology from BMW and low-cost production abilities of TVS.
The 300cc bike will get the TVS badge for some markets and the BMW badge for other markets. It comes with a reverse cylinder design with the intake at the front and exhaust at the rear of the cylinder. Even Yamaha and Honda are adopting such designs so BMW is not the first one out there. The 300cc engine is a water-cooled single-cylinder unit but power and torque figures are not known, we expect around 30 horses though. The suspension comes with upside-down forks at the front and a monoshock at the rear. Disc brakes will be offered at the front and rear and ABS will also be offered as a standard feature.
The design of the TVS-BMW motorcycle will of course be sharp and it will carry some distinctive styling elements. The BMW-TVS K03 will also come with LED lights. We can expect the bike to be unveiled towards the end of this year, most probably at the 2015 EICMA and then it will be made available in 2016. The BMW-TVS K03 will fight it out with a slew of bikes including the Honda CBR300R, Hero HX250R, KTM Duke 200, Kawasaki Ninja 300 and Benelli TNT 300.
Source – VisorDown.com