Royal Enfield has always been a company which stuck to its classic roots. The launching of the Himalayan was a major departure from the current product portfolio that the company has. The Royal Enfield Himalayan earned its bouquets and brickbats in equal measure. Some lauded Royal Enfield for thinking out of the box while others complained about the quality issues. Some even complained about the lack of punch on Himalayan. And guess what! Siddhartha Lal, MD and CEO, Eicher Motors has said that Royal Enfield will be bringing in a Himalayan with a bigger engine. The company is all set to launch its first ever 750 cc motorcycle at the upcoming EICMA Motorcycle Show next month and this could start the coming of bigger engined Royal Enfield motorcycles in the future.
(Royal Enfield will be showcasing its first ever 750 cc bikes at EICMA 2017)In an interview with Motorcycle Magazine, the Royal Enfield boss has confirmed that the company will be working on a bigger capacity version of the Himalayan in the next one and half years or so. Lal says that its core products will always be the 350 cc bikes but about 10 per cent of Royal Enfield bikes sold in India are the 500 cc models. The 10 per cent amounts to over 60,000 bikes! Lal believes that there is a case for a more powerful Himalayan particularly with respect to the Indian two-wheeler market, which now has more takers for adventure motorcycles. Royal Enfield has set itself a displacement bracket of 300 cc to 750 cc and currently there are no adventure motorcycles in this particular segment.
( The Royal Enfield Himalayan with a bigger engine might see the light of the day in 2019)Any motorcycle that Royal Enfield develops needs to have its roots in India. The reason being that India is still the largest market for Royal Enfield and this is where the volumes come from! Economies of scale are a very important aspect of product planning. Royal Enfield has selected a few models from its portfolio that might get a bigger engine in the future and the Himalayan is definitely one of them. Lal says that this is what the Indian customer wants and not because they want to make a bike purely for export sales.
Siddhartha Lal did not comment on the capacity or any other specifics of the bigger capacity Himalayan in particular. The Himalayan currently has a 410 cc single-cylinder engine and it just might get a 750 cc parallel-twin like the upcoming Royal Enfield bike to be unveiled at EICMA. The bigger capacity Royal Enfield Himalayan might be unveiled in 2019 or so.
Royal Enfield has set itself a target to become the number one manufacturer in the middleweight segment globally in the next five years. The idea is to meet the demand in India and also work on increasing the sales volumes in other global markets in order to achieve the ambitious target.
Source: Motorcycle Magazine/Alan Cathcart
