Royal Enfield Hunter 350 is expected to be the smallest, lightest and the most affordable RE
Royal Enfield Hunter 350 has been spied testing multiple times. Yet, the test mules don’t stop from popping up from time to time. As Hunter 350 is nearing launch, Royal Enfield seems to be hard-pressed to push the testing processes to get the product finalised for production before August 7th launch.
Credits to Inigo M Sabastian, one such test mule was spotted recently. It was rigged with wires connected to testing equipment strapped to the pillion seat. The test mule was spotted cruising comfortably on a flyover. It looks production-ready with very minimal camouflage. Previous test mules also donned accessories like a windscreen, pillion back-rest and more.
Hunter 350 gets all the quintessential classic motorcycle elements. Round headlights? Check. Round tail-lights? Check. Round indicators? Check. Round mirrors? Check. Upright posture? Check. You get the point.
Hunter 350 Specs & Features
Royal Enfield will equip the upcoming Hunter 350 with a new J-series engine that does duties on other 350cc bikes from RE. It displaces 349cc and makes 20.2 bhp of power at 6,100 RPM and 27 Nm of torque at 4,000 RPM. It gets oil cooling and is coupled with a 5-speed gearbox. Royal Enfield Hunter 350 exhaust note is captured in the video below.
Hunter 350 borrows its suspension setup from Meteor 350. It is a conventional telescopic fork but on the Hunter 350, it gets fork gators, hinting to us that it might be pitted as a scrambler-style bike. The rear gets twin shock absorbers. It also gets the same alloy wheel design as the Meteor 350 but Royal Enfield can change the wheel sizes on Hunter 350 or retain 19″ size at front and 17″ size at the rear.
All the lights including the turn indicators will get halogens owing to its low price bracket. It gets a single-piece seat instead of a split-seat setup. Hunter 350 also gets a stubby exhaust which looks shorter in length and narrower too.
Royal Enfield will equip it with disc brakes at both ends, but it is not yet known whether it will get single-channel or dual-channel ABS. We have also spotted multiple instrument clusters on Hunter 350. Some have a tripper screen while others don’t. Hunter 350 might drop the tripper screen on the final model due to chip shortage.
Royal Enfield Hunter 350 – Competition
But there’s something missing in the equation that Royal Enfield is typically associated with, size. Royal Enfield’s new bike gets a lean and athletic body while the rest of the portfolio looks much bigger in size. Hunter 350 doesn’t look like a big motorcycle at all. It doesn’t have the sense of substantialness that Royal Enfield motorcycles are associated with. Hunter 350 will be pitted as an entry-level offering by Royal Enfield. So, it attracts a lot of customers that are upgrading from a Pulsar 150 or something.
But making it smaller will also reduce the overall weight and this will attract a lot of first-time bike buyers that would have scoffed at 185 – 205 kg weight of other Royal Enfield bikes. Thus attracting a lot more footfall into their showrooms. Hunter 350 is expected to launch on August 7th. When launched, it will compete with newly launched TVS Ronin and Bajaj Avenger 220 Cruise and Jawa 42 in genre and character. In terms of pricing, it might also compete with Dominar 250.
