British motorcycle marque Triumph Motorcycles India today expanded its Bonneville cruiser line-up and introduced the Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster at Rs 11,11,500, ex-showroom, all-India.

While the company has been aggressive and introduced five new models in India between April to January 2018, the Speedmaster is its sixth launch in this fiscal, and Triumph is set to introduce new products in the adventure touring category, clearly hinting at the updated 2018 Triumph Tiger range, by early next month.

The Bonneville Speedmaster continues to carry the legendary Bonneville heritage with its classic cruiser styling, albeit with some modern touches and taking a little bit of bold character from its other sibling, the Bonneville Bobber.

The Speedmaster gets a full-LED circular headlamp cluster at the front along with LED DRLs. The side profile sees a traditional fuel tank with hand painted coach lines, spoke wheels and a low set chrome exhaust, all of which together bring a classic appeal to the design.

The contemporary elements, on the other hand, also include an LED tail-lamp cluster, and an analogue-digital speedometer console. The Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster gets the company's 1,200cc parallel-twin liquid-cooled motor, which also powers the regular Bonneville T120. The engine has been slightly tweaked to produce 76bhp (+10%) of power and 106Nm (+2%) of peak power in the Speedmaster.

The motorcycle comes built on a tubular steel twin cradle frame and gets KYB suspension at both the ends. In terms of safety, the Speedmaster gets a torque assist clutch, dual riding modes, ABS and switchable traction control as safety features on-board.

The Bonneville Speedmaster will be available in three colour options and the company is also offering two purpose-built variants – Highway and Maverick – along with a host of customisation and merchandise options with the motorcycle.

According to Vimal Sumbly, managing director, Triumph Motorcycles India (pictured above), “We are seeing good growth in the Classic, Roadster and the Adventure motorcycle categories in the country, and our recent launches in this fiscal have been on similar lines. The Speedmaster fills the gap in our Cruiser range in India, where the portfolio started only upward of Rs 16 lakh until now. The Speedmaster would now make the brand more accessible to customers looking for such a product in the mid-size space.”

Triumph Motorcycles India has seen good growth in the above 500cc premium motorcycle space in the country, with its market share standing at 19 percent between April-January 2018. The company operates through 15 of its experience centres across the country, with the latest one having come up in Gurugram.

Enhancing local assembly, reducing selling price
Triumph Motorcycles India, which had started to make a switch from a 95 percent CBU portfolio until last year, today sees 75 percent of its models coming in via the CKD route from its Thailand subsidiary. “In line with the Make in India program, we are set to make 90 percent of our offerings assembled in India by end of June 2018. We took this conscious decision and have invested in this direction to make our products more affordable, as well as create more jobs,” said Sumbly.

In the Union Budget announced on February 1, the government had substantially reduced the import duty on CBUs from being 75 percent earlier to 50 percent for high-end motorcycles but increased the custom duty on CKDs.

“There has been twice the hike in the customs duty on CKD imports in this financial year, firstly, by 3 percent when the GST was implemented in July 2017, and now by 5 percent with the Budget announcement. Reducing the CBU duties would not bring much impact on the business as those products today account for only 10-15 percent of the premium motorcycle market. So, we urge the government to reconsider the revised duty imposed on CKDs to help the segment flourish in the future,” Sumbly added.