The Kawasaki Versys-X 300 is an excellent travel motorcycle with a 19-inch wheel, equipped with a 300 cc two-cylinder engine (but in Japan, for regulatory reasons, a 250 cc is used) with about 40 hp: a motorcycle that is alive in many Asian countries and in the United States.
Given that the model is still in full production, it seems almost absurd to think of a test prototype with the same characteristics, but that’s what our Indian colleagues from Bikewhale caught during a road test. What would be the purpose of testing a model already in production?
The reason may lie in the specific context of India, but it may also have repercussions in our “mature” markets. In India, almost all the most active manufacturers in the market (TVS, KTM, Honda, Yamaha, Royal Enfield, BMW, Bajaj, Hero, Yezdi, Suzuki, etc.) have an adventure motorcycle of about 300/400 cc in their catalog or, if they haven’t produced it yet, they are about to do so. Specifically, the segment of motorcycles in this displacement range is widely spread and has such large volumes that they justify a fight to the last… prototype. There are two paths followed by the manufacturers: the one of the platform from which several models are derived, even from different origins (the case of Yezdi or, partly, Royal Enfield, for example), and the one of motorcycles designed specifically, but the content does not change: in India, we find a considerable variety of motorcycles of about 350 cc with front wheels of 21 or 19 inches, and many of them are not imported to Europe.
Kawasaki, with this prototype, may be planning to introduce the Versys-X in the Indian market (where the only Versys available is the 650 cc), since they already have a proven product at home that only needs some modifications to comply with the BS6 emission standard and enter the 40 hp adventure motorcycle area. However, what makes us hesitate is that the Indian BS6 standard is not far from Euro 5, so – in theory – once the Versys-X 300 engine has been updated, it wouldn’t be that difficult to bring it back to Europe; Obviously, this is just a hypothesis that would need to be tested based on the conditions of the European market, where, in addition, the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450, the KTM 390 ADV, the CFMOTO 450 MT, the Honda CRF 300, the BMW G 310 GS, the Voge Valico 300 Rally, to name just a few of the likely competitors, are achieving, to a greater or lesser extent, good sales numbers.
So, Kawasaki, why not bring back the Versys-X to Europe? The same can be said of another major absentee in this segment, Suzuki, which after depriving us of the two-cylinder V-Strom 250 (which, however, was a crossover, not an Adventure, given the 17-inch front wheel) has a single-cylinder V-Strom 250 SX with 26.5 hp and a 19-inch front wheel on its list in India. Once again, there are no signs of an export to the Old Continent.
