Royal Enfield did not hide that the new platform formed by the 452 cc engine that debuted with the new Himalayan is destined for great things: especially because in India, which willingly or unwillingly we have to accept as a universe where volumes are n times larger than in Portugal, the market is evolving towards more powerful and complete motorcycles. It is true that there are and will continue to be simple and very cheap vehicles that, in some cases, constitute the backbone of private transportation on the subcontinent, but a certain type of customer wants more, and motorcycles like the Himalayan 450 or the Hero XPulse 440 (which, according to rumors, is about to be presented) are the ideal “premium” upgrade of highly successful models.
All this to say that it makes sense, in addition to being predictable, that the 452 cc liquid-cooled engine with 40 hp, which equips the Royal Enfield Adventure, will be mounted on other future models on the production line. One of them could be what we see in the photograph published by Rushlane, which shows a roadster equipped with the Himalayan 450 engine. It would be natural to think that, as happened with the 411 cc air-cooled version, a Scrambler would be derived from the Adventure, but some details do not completely convince us.
The Scram 411 is, in fact, similar in many areas to the Himalayan 411, except for the spoked 19-inch front wheel and little else that alters its character in a slightly more road-oriented direction. The same operation, if we look at these photographs, does not seem to be carried out with the prototype captured by photographers in India. The first thing that immediately catches the eye is that the rims are alloy, the second is that the diameter of the front wheel is 17 inches (it could be 18, the photograph could also be misleading, but we tend to exclude this possibility). All these characteristics do not fit very well into the “Scram” designation, which should – if the concept of derivation from the Himalayan were respected – have spoked wheels and a front wheel diameter of 19 inches.
And then? Our opinion – ready to be contradicted – is different and starts from the consideration that it is not certain that Royal Enfield will follow a linear path in defining new models. On one hand, they could put the name Scram on a bike like this, on the other hand, we think that the Indian manufacturer has in its hands a platform intended to last for many years and could explore the market with a roadster (in which case we would see the hypothetical name “Super HNTR”) or other bikes ready to surprise us. For example, the Hero Mavrik 440 (and its counterpart Harley-Davidson X440) has already appeared on the Indian market, repositioning the concept of a roadster in a displacement larger than the 300/350 cc of the Honda H’ness. What is certain is that the prototype seems to be in a good phase of definition with traditional forks, instrumentation borrowed from the Himalayan, and apparently also the braking system and the one-piece seat. We will see what will be the next liquid-cooled model from Royal Enfield.
