Back in 2004, Kinetic Engineering Ltd. has launched a sporty bike – Kinetic Comet 250 from the Hyosung stable. But ended up playing a bad first innings in India. However, the HH Karizma 223cc launched in 2003 was a successful at the time been affordable for the youth.
But the whole bike scenario in India changed, when Bajaj introduced the Pulsar in 2001 and later when they kept on adding additional 20cc for every next-model with reasonably pricing. In this scenario, the bike lovers came to know about the difference in tech specs and in addition to it the Dhoom film released at a time which further strengthened to change the bike scenario in India forever.
Currently, India’s cubic capacity progression is in full swing, especially in recent times with a host of brilliant quarter-litre bikes launched in our market. Now the entire bike manufacturers are rolling-up their sleeves in 250cc segment and if they don’t have in their portfolio, they are creating them. Although our home-ground manufacturers like Hero MotorCorp, Bajaj Auto & TVS Motors doesn’t have any motorcycle in this 250cc segment.
Honda has put the 250cc market on fire by delivering a high-quality bike at a terrific price. This has resulted in almost all the bike manufacturers putting on their thinking caps and pondering on ways to capitalize on this segment. We wonder what they were doing when the entire Indian biking community was clamoring for a reasonably priced 250cc (or bigger) bike.
After teaching the Indian manufacturers a lesson or two about their own market by creating history in the scooters segment, Honda seems to have sent some two-wheeler manufacturers back to school again with the packaging and pricing of the CBR250R.
At present, the players in the Indian 250cc motorcycle segment are the Kawasaki Ninja 250R, the Honda’s CBR250R and the new Hyosung GT250R (also the naked version GT250 is on the cards). Meanwhile, our desi bike manufacturer Mahindra 2-wheeler’s has a 300cc motorcycle in their line-up, Mahindra Mojo 300 based on Malaguti MR250, an Italian motorcycle with Mahindra badging.
Also see the follows –
Bajaj Auto seeks to launch bigger Pulsar in coming years
Hero Motocorp started working on the 250cc sports bike
Suzuki GW250 production begins in China, expected in India too
