Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 & Continental GT 650; brilliant pricing!

Royal Enfield has just launched the Interceptor 650 and the Continental GT 650 twin cylinder engined motorcycles in  India. The retro-modern motorcycles are priced very competitively. Prices of the Interceptor start from Rs. 2.34  lakhs, and that of the Continental GT 650 start from Rs. 2.57 lakhs.

Bookings of the motorcycles are open starting today at all Royal Enfield dealerships across India. Online bookings are open as well. Test rides will  begin shortly. However, major customer deliveries of the bikes are expected to happen only from early next year.

The pricing of the Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 make them the lowest priced twin cylinder  engined motorcycles in India. The next cheapest twin cylinder bike is the Kawasaki Ninja 300, which is priced at Rs.  2.98 lakhs. While the Royal Enfield twins are totally different bikes when compared to the Kawasaki Ninja 300  sportbike, they’re also much more powerful.

Full price list of the Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 and Interceptor 650

While the 300cc Ninja makes less than 40 Bhp of peak power and about 28 Nm of peak torque, the Royal Enfield twins get 47 Bhp-52 Nm outputs. Their engines are much more larger, displacing 647cc. The air-oil cooled engine has been newly developed by Royal Enfield and is its most modern power plant ever produced. It gets fuel injection, four valve heads and a single overhead camshaft.

The engine is paired to a 6 speed manual gearbox with a slipper clutch as standard. No other Royal Enfield has ever  received these features. A double cradle frame holds the motorcycles together, and also gives them sharp handling.  Coming to other modern bits on the Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 and Interceptor 650, the bikes get disc brakes on both wheels, with dual channel ABS as standard.

Spoked wheels running on tube-type tyres are also standard. Both motorcycles use a conventional suspension set up. The front end is suspended by telescopic forks while the rear gets twin gas charged shock absorbers. Travel on the front forks and rear suspension is quite limited, at 110 mm and 88 mm respectively. Clearly, these motorcycles are meant mainly for street riding.

However, ground clearance is ample, making these bikes quite usable. Both motorcycles get 174 mm of ground clearance. The Interceptor 650 is 202 kilos heavy while the Continental GT 650 is 4 kilos lighter. The Interceptor gets a 13.7 Kmpl while the Continental GT 650 has a 12.5 liter fuel tank. All in all, both bikes promise to make high  performance, retro motorcycling very accessible. Royal Enfield has just gone to the next level!