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Royal Enfield Hunter 350 fully revealed by Eicher MD Siddhartha Lal

Royal Enfield is all set to launch its most affordable offering in India – the Hunter 350. The stylish motorcycle has been revealed by Siddhartha Lal, the managing director of Eicher – the automotive company that owns Royal Enfield. Mr. Lal revealed the bike on Instagram, from a preview event in Bangkok, Thailand. While the Hunter 350’s prices will be revealed at launch, on the 7th of August, many details are already out. The Hunter 350 will sit at the bottom of Royal Enfield’s line up, and could have a starting price of under Rs. 1.6 lakh.

 

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Here’s what Mr. Lal had to say during the unveil,

Hunter has been in development since 2016, but the development team has been really fine tuning the chassis to offer a completely different character and personality to the bike. The chassis guys have been tuning, re-tuning the bike to make it what it is. It’s agile, fun and hopefully you will enjoy riding it as much as we enjoyed developing it.

The motorcycle – styled like an urban scrambler – is meant to attract younger buyers to the Royal Enfield fold. A teardrop fuel tank with knee recesses, spunky paint schemes and a Ducati Scrambler-style flat, single seat are key styling highlights. The bike will be sold in two key variants – Retro and Metro. The Hunter 350 Retro will be the affordable, no-frills variant while the Hunter 350 Metro will offer customization options and more features. The Hunter Metro will also get a sub-variant called the Rebel, with three paint schemes: Rebel Black, Rebel Blue and Rebel Red (MIY).

MIY here stands for Make-It-Yours, a factory-level customization program from Royal Enfield that customers can opt for. The Hunter Metro variant will also get a MIY option on the Dapper Grey paint scheme. The Hunter Metro will be offered in two other colours – Dapper White and Dapper Ash. The Hunter Retro variant will be offered in Factory Black and Factory Silver colours.

Royal Enfield Hunter 350 fully revealed by Eicher MD Siddhartha Lal

All variants of the Royal Enfield Hunter 350 will use the tried-and-tested 350cc, four stroke long stroke engine that made its debut on the Meteor. Peak power and torque outputs are likely to be similar – 20 Bhp-27 Nm. A five speed manual gearbox will be standard with this engine, which also gets fuel injection, an overhead camshaft and a balancer shaft to cancel out vibrations.

This motor has been quite successful in the Meteor, which is one of Royal Enfield’s smoothest single, and the Hunter 350 is expected to carry this reputation ahead. Telescopic front forks, twin shock absorbers at the rear, 17 inch alloy wheels, disc brakes on both wheels, dual channel ABS and tubeless tyres will be key features on offer. The 17 inch wheels should make the motorcycle quite flickable, and also give owners wide choice of tyres. The frame also seem lifted from the Meteor. Ground clearance stands at an acceptable 150 mm, while seta height is an accessible 800 mm.

While the Hunter Metro will run 110/17 and 140/17 tyres and also get the Tripper navigation console as an optional extra, the Retro version will be more bare-basic – running narrower 100/17 and 120/17 tyres, and doing away with the center stand. In terms of kerb weight, the Hunter 350 Retro at 177 kilograms, will be about 4 kilograms lighter than the Metro trim. Over to the launch now.