The Yamaha R25 has always been rumoured to be a 300cc bike when it comes to India and Europe. Let it be in the single-cylinder form or a twin. Yamaha has to compete with the competition and has to keep the price on the premium side and that is why the 300cc avatar may land up in India. The Honda CBR300R will come first and the Kawasaki Ninja 300 already exists to fight it. You now also know that we have reported that Yamaha has registered the name YZF-R3. This means a bike by this name will come somewhere or the other around the globe.
Indonesian bloggers have always said that they are getting the 250cc because of the taxes they suffer and what the rest of the world (except Japan where 250cc is again popular against 300cc bikes) will be getting is the 300cc variant. Yet again a rumour has come that the displacement will be 320cc and it is bound to come to Europe in this year itself as they await a surprise launch. The Yamaha in the twin-cylinder form has a 250cc twin-cylinder engine which produces 36 PS and 22 Nm of torque. If the capacity increases by a huge margin, which is from 250cc to 320cc, the engine is bound to produce more torque and slightly more horsepower.
Given the light kerb weight of 166 kgs which is six kilograms less than the Kawasaki Ninja 300 and 168 kgs is the weight which belongs to the upcoming CBR300R, the Yamaha could have a upper hand in terms of figures. All these three bikes right now have the same chassis but the suspension setup is different on them. It will interesting to see how these Japanese manufacturers price their products because the Ninja is ready with a high price tag of Rs. 4 lakh because of the connection between Kawasaki and Bajaj. Most of the questions will be answered automatically if either of these two companies launch their quarter-litre offering in India.