New Delhi: Royal Enfield has some big plans in the pipeline and a number of different products will be launched in the next few years. One of the most anticipated products is the new liquid-cooled Royal Enfield Himalayan 450, but this platform will also support four more bikes.
Royal Enfield Himalayan 450
Royal Enfield is working on an all-new 450cc liquid-cooled engine that will be the basis for the upcoming Himalayan 450. The big news now is that this engine will power up to five new models, according to the official Royal Enfield Document.
Spy photos of the Himalayan 450 have been doing the rounds for a while now, and the test mules have started to look more like production bikes than rough, early prototypes.
An even more off-road focused variant of the Himalayan 450 has been widely rumored to follow, and this latest document seems to confirm that. We see a more serious-looking bike listed as a variant of the Himalaya, but with a flat, rally-style one-piece seat.
Ground clearance and suspension travel also appear visually larger than the standard Himalayan car, and overall the silhouette wouldn’t look out of place for a Dakar-focused machine. Of course, these are just rough sketches at this point, and only time will tell what the production bike will look like.
Royal Enfield 450cc Scrambler
Like other current RE engine platforms, this 450cc platform will have ‘master’ models, which will then spawn derivatives, which in turn spawn distinct variants. Next to the Himalayan 450 we see the second main model, which resembles a naked street roadster.
This bike is likely to be more approachable and road-oriented than the Himalayan 450, with a lower seat height and alloy wheels as opposed to the latter’s wire-spoke units. The wheels appear to be the same size at both ends and are likely to be 17-inchers, opening up more options when it comes to tires.
In addition to this roadster, we see two other motorcycles – a faired cafe racer and a scrambler. The design sketch of the café racer shows many similarities to the 450cc roadster, especially when it comes to underpinnings. But in a real café racer it has a fairing in the front and lower handlebars (probably clips).
However, the scrambler variant has a much more distinctive appearance, with more differences compared to the roadster. Notable features include a high-mounted, scrambler-style under-seat exhaust system, front beak, tall handlebars and wire-spoke wheels. Also visible is the flat, scrambler-style seat typical of scramblers, and the rear appears to be quite minimalistic, with a small taillight and a short fender.
To summarize, it looks like there will be five different models that will be based on the liquid-cooled 450 platform, and it is quite likely that the Himalayan 450 will be the first of them to be launched.
These are very long-term plans, so it’s hard to say when the first one will be launched. But as we mentioned earlier, the Himalaya is shaping up to be a finished motorcycle and you could expect an official presentation in the second half of next year. Stay tuned for more details.
