A couple of weeks ago, a news reached the interweb that Honda was planning a 150cc offering for the Indian market which would either replace the Honda Dazzler or sit above it. Today we have for you a piece of news which is a bit more precise than that. The 150cc offering from the house of Honda will be none other than the naked version of their full faired sportsbike, the CBR150R.
Honda CB150R will be the name of the bike and is expected to reach India sometime in February. The country has huge demand for 150cc bikes and currently the leaders of the pack are the bikes which form the Yamaha FZ series and the iconic Pulsar. The CB150R will be powered by the same 149.4 cc engine as its sibling and will give out 16.8 horses and 13.1 NM of maximum torque. The engine will be mated to a 6-speed manual transmission.
The CB150R will get telescopic front forks and a monoshock rear which will be carried over from the faired sibling. Since it will be a naked bike, the bike will weigh less as well and will have a weight of 129 kg which shall make it quite a peppy performer. The seat will be redesigned to accommodate the pillion comfortably over city commutes and the exhaust will be redesigned for a better low end torque which is a necessity on city roads.
Pricing however will be the key. They priced the full faired brother at a premium and the bike fell on its face. However they can not afford to repeat such a mistake again as the company does not really have a presence in the 150cc market when it comes to volumes. They need to price right in the territory of the Yamaha FZ series to make an impact. We wish to come up with the official announcement soon.
Check out the 2013 Honda CB150R Streetfire TV Commercial below the jump.
Also see – 2013 Honda CB150R Streetfire unveiled, is this India bound?
Source – AutoCarIndia
