In a very surprising move by Yamaha India, the company has imported at least 2 units of the scintillating R3 in India according to Zauba.com and the reason mentioned is “R & D” purposes.
The origin country is Indonesia and they have arrived at Delhi Air Cargo barely a few days back on 13th of January 2015.
It is expected that Yamaha will be launching one of the two quarter liters – R25 or R3 in India and speculations were rife about the smaller sibling making way. But this latest import of R3 is surprising and though it doesn’t confirm its launch but does give away a possible hint that the company may be planning a surprise!
Interestingly, the value entered by the authorities pegs the motorcycle at Rs 1.88 Lakhs which is real interesting. It is expected that that Yamaha will be bringing in the bike as a CKD (Completely Knocked Down Units) and assemble it at either of their plants in Faridabad or Surajpur.
So, if we add another 30-40% towards the additional CKD taxes, it adds up to a price of about Rs 2.5 to 2.6 Lakhs. At anything under 3 Lakhs ex-showroom, we are sure it will attract a lot of takers since the closest rival Ninja 300 is about Rs 70,000-80,000 away (Rs 3.63 ex-showroom Delhi). However, let us also clear that these listed prices may not bear any relation to the final ex-showroom prices the bike will be launched at in India.
Just for your information, R3 in UK costs about 4.65 Lakhs after conversion in INR and the Ninja 300 ABS costs Rs 5.04 Lakhs and the RC390 something around Rs 4.84 Lakhs.
Yamaha R3 comes equipped with a 321cc twin cylinder engine which is a rebored version of R25 and churns out 42PS of power output and 29.6Nm of torque. These are scintillating figures and out-shadow all other motorcycles except the Austrian warrior!