Bajaj rolls out the Ninja 250R

Kawasaki’s bestselling Ninja 250R is the newest sports motorcycle to join the ranks of high-performance bikes from Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Ducati to be sold in India. Unlike these “overpowered litre-class motorcycles”, which are imported as completely built units and all priced above Rs 10 lakh, the Ninja is assembled by Bajaj Auto at Chakan from CKD kits and is, the Indian company believes, the only supersport motorcycle whose performance – and price, at just under Rs 2.7 lakh – is “practical for Indian conditions”. The bikes are being imported from Kawasaki’s manufacturing facility in Thailand. Nearly 90 percent of the bike will come packaged as a single kit with a few components packed separately. Assembly in this form is suitable in a low-cost, low-volume scenario. From the government’s perspective, there is no clear distinction between CKD kit components and spare parts, with a uniform import duty of 10 percent levied on both. With its 33bhp liquid-cooled, fuel-injected parallel-twin four-stroke engine with dual throttle valves, high-performance petal disc brakes front and rear, and class-leading ergonomic styling, the 250R is, Kawasaki boasts, the best quarter-litre bike ever. (The carburetted version sold in the US is the largest-selling motorcycle in that market.) Other features include dual-lamp headlights with daytime running lamp, adjustable front fork, and a two-into-one exhaust system with dual catalysers. The bike, unveiled at Bajaj’s Akurdi headquarters in Pune last fortnight, is the first of a series of Kawasaki sports models from its Ninja range that will come in over the next few years. Over the next few weeks, it will begin to be sold exclusively across Bajaj’s 30 Probiking showrooms across the country. Each of these will have a vehicle dynamometer that will allow prospective customers to “test” ride the bike inside the showroom. Bajaj has already assembled “more than 60” out of an initial lot of 140 kits, and is fully geared up with 100 percent spares and service support, according to Bajaj president (new projects) Eric Vas. He told a press conference that the company expects to sell over 1,000 units a year of the bike, and would look at the initial response before deciding which Kawasaki model to bring in next. The first KTM bike will arrive in a “few months”, managing director Rajiv Bajaj announced, adding that he envisaged an equally successful “front-end” collaboration with the Austrian off-road specialist as Bajaj presently enjoys with Kawasaki in the Philippines, a model these two companies plan to extend to other countries of the ASEAN region and Latin America.