Should the Royal Enfield Meteor come in a fuller fatter 650 flavour?
The Royal Enfield Meteor 350 might be strong enough to make a global impact... but could a bigger, beefier 650 version be even better?
There is plenty of activity taking place down at Royal Enfield at the moment as the Indian firm prepares to go on a new model offensive that will apparently span 7 years and see the introduction of - count them - 28 new models.
Nonetheless, one of the first of these is surely one of the most important - the Royal Enfield Meteor 350 - which has finally landed in its home market as is revving its new platform single-cylinder 350cc engine in readiness for going global early next year.
We’ll have to wait to ride one to find out if the Meteor 350 is a big step forward in terms of quality and riding pleasure, while staying true to its sub-4k value roots.
Royal Enfield Meteor 350 - Everything you need to know...
On the face of things, the Meteor and the 350cc are perfect matches, but since we’re a bit greedy we do wonder whether there is scope for Royal Enfield pushing up into the more mainstream sector by almost doubling the size to 650cc and sidling up next to the Continental GT and Interceptor.
That would require a fair bit of expanding but it seems we aren’t the only ones pondering this with Oberdan Bezzi getting his tools out again to give us an idea of what a Royal Enfield Meteor 650 in Enduro spec could look like.
Bolstering the engine size to a parallel-twin certainly carries some performance benefits, including more than doubling power from 20hp to 47hp.
In short, we can definitely see the Meteor 650 in Royal Enfield’s future but perhaps - like an actual meteor - the 350 will create enough of an impact in a smaller size by itself anyway….
How about a 650cc Himalayan…?
