KTM Duke 390 challenging FB Mondial HPS 300 to get cheaper: Here’s why

The Indian motorcycle market has been bombarded with affordable high-performance motorcycles in recent times. The affordable performance bikes have become much more common on the Indian roads than they were a few years back. KTM 390 Duke is one such extremely popular affordable high-performance bike that has been ruling the roads for a long time now. Every now and then manufacturers try to bring in their products to challenge the 390 Duke in the market but high import cost keeps most of the competition away.

To give a stiff competition to the KTM 390 Duke, Motoroyale, which is into multi-branded imported motorcycle business has announced that they will start bringing in the FB Mondial HPS 300 as a Completely Knocked Down (CKD) product. The FB Mondial HPS 300 is already available in India and was launched in October 2018. It is currently priced at Rs. 3.37 lakhs, ex-showroom.

Motoroyale, which is the Indian partner of the Italian motorcycle brand will assemble the motorcycles at its Ahmednagar facility. The KTM 390 Duke is priced at Rs. 2.44 lakhs in the Indian market, which is extremely competitive given the high power of the 390 Duke. The scrambler-inspired design of the FB Mondial HPS 300 makes it quite outstanding in terms of design.

The motorcycle is powered by a single-cylinder, 249cc engine that churns out a maximum power of 25 Bhp at 9,000 rpm and a peak torque of 22 Nm at 7,000 rpm. Even though the power output is not outstanding in the paper, the company says that the exclusive styling of the bike justifies the high price tag. The power generated by the imported motorcycle is similar to the Bajaj Pulsar 200, which is much cheaper than the HPS 300.

Ajinkya Firodia, managing director, Motoroyale revealed that the assembly line at its Ahmednagar factory is ready and the start of the production of FB Mondial 300 motorcycles would mark the inauguration of the assembly line. There are already around 100 bookings for the bike and the deliveries would start in December 2018 itself. The FB Mondial HP 300 looks quite different when compared to the regular bikes. It gets a retro-modern look with chiselled fuel tank, single-seat set-up. The bike gets double-barrel scrambler exhausts giving it a premium look. The wheels are spoked and both front and rear wheels get petal discs. The headlamp unit itself looks quite modern and gets a single-pod instrument cluster. There are bar-end mirrors on the handlebar too. Even though the FB Mondial HP 300 looks extremely good and gets head-turning attributes, the low power producing engine does not justify the price tag. It is quite possible that Motoroyale may bring down the price of the bike after the CKD assembly of the bike starts. Currently, there are around 20 showrooms in India through which the bikes will be sold.

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