The Royal Enfield Himalayan adventure motorcycle is expected to be priced between Rs. 1.65-1.85 lakhs and will reportedly be launched as early as November 2015.
Some exciting news has brewed up from the house of Royal Enfield as its much awaited offering the ‘Himalayan’ will be launched as early as this November in the country. What happens to be even more exciting is that the company is working on pricing the adventure motorcycle right and while the final price is yet to be decided, the Himalayan is expected to carry a starting price tag between Rs. 1.65 lakhs to 1.85 lakhs (ex-showroom).
Royal Enfield has stated that it understands the psychological barrier of customers that purchase vehicles above the asking price of Rs. 2 lakhs; beyond which customers do not think much to spend over products worth Rs. 3-4 lakhs. The company has already been struggling with the Continental GT that is priced beyond the Rs. 2 lakh mark (on-road) in select cities, and gets beaten in sales by the twice as expensive Harley-Davidson Street 750 most of the times. Having sold large volumes over the years, the company management made it clear that the Himalayan too should attract customers like every other Royal Enfield bikes do.
In terms of design, Royal Enfield will be stepping into a completely new space of adventure motorcycles with power coming from a newly developed 410cc air-cooled engine with overhead cams that will reportedly make around 28 PS and 32 Nm of torque. The final figures should be within this range. The motor is said to rev freely up to 6500-7000 RPM and will also be equipped with a counter balancer to reduce vibrations. Hence, this just might be the least vibrating RE to be produced.
Furthermore, the Himalayan will be underpinned by a new double cradle frame designed by Royal Enfield owned Harris Performance, who were also instrumental in the development of the chassis for the Continental GT. The bike also gets a reinforced sub-frame to enhance the load carrying capacity on the motorcycle. Sources close to the development of the Himalayan have stated that the bike has been extensively tested at the Madras Motor Track in Chennai while test mules have been often spotted on public roads across the country. If spy shots are to be believed, RE could spawn scrambler and adventure body style motorcycles, but that is something we can only confirm closer to launch.
Source – Zigwheels.com
