Himalayan 650 twin launch not anytime soon, reveals Royal Enfield President.
Himalayan has been a motorcycle which has had a very controversial run in India. It was badly awaited and quite naturally once it was launched expectations were sky high. The product concept was very acceptable, price was fairly decent too but what has let it down big time are critical and niggling issues which MOST of the Himalayans were plagued with. This has clearly caused a lot of prospects to stay away from the ADV. Things went so bad that RE had to withdraw it from the market and it was introduced after many issues were sorted.
The big news was that Royal Enfield officially confirmed a bigger and more powerful Himalayan. In an interview to Motorcycle Magazine last year the dynamic CEO of the company, Siddharth Lal announced that they will make a larger capacity Himalayan. He said that they have identified motorcycles which will get bigger and more powerful versions and (apart from Continental GT 650 and Interceptor 650 which are coming soon) Himalayan is one of them.
He said,
“….we have selected which models we will be making bigger and more powerful versions of than we have today, and the Himalayan is one of those…”
Himalayan 650 Twin Launch
However, in a latest word with Indian Autos Blog, RE President Rudratej Singh (Rudy) said that they have NO PLANS of launching the Himalayan 650 at this point in the short term. He elaborated that they are keeping all their energies concentrated on the launch of the CGT and Interceptor twins (which have recently been launched in USA at surprise prices – details).
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RE would like to settle down with the all-new engine first before plonking it on the Himalayan. And the Himalayan 650 Twin launch could be sometime next year or thereafter. Recently, they have introduced Himalayan ABS.
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So, what do you think about Himalayan 650’s prospects? Your views…
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