Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) will launch the Honda Africa Twin by mid-2017, senior HMSI officials have confirmed to carandbike.com. The adventure motorcycle from Honda was first showcased at the 2016 Auto Expo in February 2016 and has generated a lot of interest among the motorcycle touring crowd in India. The Honda Africa Twin or Honda CRF1000L, as it's also called, will be brought to India as knocked down kits and assembled in India. Only one variant will be available for the Indian market.
"We will launch the bike in the middle of 2017, and for India, we will bring the top-of-the-line variant," Yadvinder Guleria, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, told carandbike.
(Honda Africa Twin CRF1000L)
The new Honda Africa Twin is powered by a liquid-cooled, 998 cc parallel-twin engine which makes 94 bhp power and 97 Nm of torque. Earlier Africa Twins were powered by V-twin motors. Internationally, the Africa Twin is available in two variants - one with a manual transmission and an auto shifting dual-clutch transmission (DCT). For India, Honda will be introducing the DCT variant only.
The Honda Africa Twin was earlier slated to be launched in the second half of 2016 but production of the bike was delayed at Honda's plant in Hamamatsu, Japan after an earthquake damaged the plant in June 2016. This affected CRF1000L production and deliveries across geographies. Additionally, training the required manpower and service staff at HMSI also takes some time, Honda officials said.
(Honda Africa Twin will be launched in mid-2017)
The Africa Twin is a name revered among adventure motorcyclists around the world. The original production Honda Africa Twin, or XR750, was first launched in December 1989 and was based on Honda's hugely successful rally bike the NXR750, which won the Paris-Dakar rally four times in the 1980s. The XR750 was in production till 2003 and the Africa Twin name has been revived by Honda after more than a decade with the latest version - the Africa Twin CRF1000L.
The Honda Africa Twin will compete against the likes of the Triumph Tiger 800 range, Suzuki V-Strom and Kawasaki Versys 1000. Although the bike is going to be assembled here in India, the DCT version is not expected to make it any less affordable than its competition. We expect the Honda Africa Twin CRF 1000L to be priced at least around Rs 17-18 lakh, if not more.
