TVS has officially announced their joint venture with German BMW Motorrad and the combined steam will produce mid sized motorcycles for Indian as well as international markets. The first product out of the JV is expected to be a 300cc (or thereabouts) motorcycle which has been codenamed as K03, however, not many details have been revealed yet! But Visordown has dug out an image of a bare wheel rim which is attributed to a patent filed by TVS in India. And the design of this rim matches with the alloy wheel of the first test mule which was seen back in January this year.
Companies generally file for patents when they have frozen product/parts designs which does hint at the fact that the first motorcycle from this JV, which is expected to be the K03, is closer to its launch.
The bike as we know by now, will be badged as both a TVS and a BMW in different countries. This will give TVS a much needed global exposure and BMW the marketing wizardry of a large market like India. Interestingly, Visordown says that K03 will be a single cylinder liquid cooled motorcycle. Though it has only been snapped testing in a naked avatar, a faired sports version as well as a semi-faired adventure version is reportedly on the cards too.
The report further states that the engine is expected to have an unusual reverse cylinder design which has the intake system at the front and exhaust at the back. The cylinder will be titled backwards towards the frame and not like the typical forward biased motors.
TVS’ MD Venu Shrinivasan also revealed recently that their first TVS BMW product will be launched within this financial year (more details).
