The existing Himalayan chassis will be modified to support the newly developed torquey 648 cc parallel twin engine which also powers the 650 twins
Royal Enfield’s CEO Mr. Sid Lal said that they were working on a more powerful Himalayan almost two years ago in 2017. The upcoming adventure tourer will be powered by their newly developed parallel twin engine that made its debut with the 650 twins and there is a huge possibility that it could launch this year in India.
The current Himalayan is offered with a 411 cc, single cylinder, four-stroke unit which produces around 24.5 Bhp of peak power and 32 Nm of peak torque. While many owners are happy with the current engines specs and power there are quite a few of those extreme adventure seekers who wants more power and performance from this affordable adventure tourer.
Although the Himalayan was not particularly a successful product for Royal Enfield because of the reliability issue that it faced earlier nonetheless it was definitely an interesting concept which had the potential of becoming one of the most successful motorcycles of its segment. That said, the upcoming Himalayan 650 too has a lot of potential both for the India as well as the International market.
The Himalayan has a simple, to the point and practical design. The design elements like the protective grille, tail luggage rack, and the pannier mounting points definitely come in handy during touring. While the torquey 648 cc, parallel twin motor could be an ideal new heart for the Himalayan. The newly developed parallel twin is an air cooled engine with an oil cooler which is cheap to maintain and also is not a complex unit either.
The Himalayan already gets a durable chassis which has been designed to take some bumps and tuned especially for offroad. However, RE will definitely modify the existing chassis further to support the bigger engine. The suspension setup could also be tuned accordingly as well. The powerful Himalayan will definitely get a fatter 43 mm telescopic front forks and a monoshock setup. Expect the new Himalayan to also feature the same long suspension travel and impressive ground clearance.
While you can also expect a bigger 320 mm front disc and a 240 mm rear disc for better-stopping power. It will also get a switchable ABS system as well for the aid of the rider (unlike the non-switchable ones found in the current Himalayan). RE has also taken adequate steps to ensure that the quality of their 650 twins remains top notch thus you can also expect the same quality to also be maintained for the upcoming Himalayan this time as well.