Is the Royal Enfield Continental GT about to go big-bore?
Spyshots from India show what is believed to be a larger capacity Royal Enfield Continental GT-R boasting 750cc of engine capacity.
Royal Enfield is reportedly taking its much-loved Continental GT into new territory, after new images surfaced showing an apparent 750cc version of the bike.
While we can’t glean technical information from a single picture, reports from India suggest that the bike visible in the images below is a new 750 version of the Conti’ GT. Whether or not it makes it to market as a GT-R edition, as reported by RushLane, remains to be seen. What is apparent is that the bike shown seems to be utilising an engine that is visually very similar to the one we saw in the Himalayan 750 prototype that was spotted testing a few weeks back.
Adding more capacity is likely in response to tightening emissions regulations, and it should allow Royal Enfield to build a bike capable of future certification, without losing out on horsepower.
Engine aside, the rest of the bike looks very similar to the current-generation Continental GT. Retro twin-shocks are still present, as are ByBre calipers, conventional cartridge forks and bench seat. What is new is the cafe-racer style fairing of the test bike, although that could well be a red herring designed to hide what lies beneath. The test bike shown in the images also wears a lambda sensor mounted just after the manifold, which is again different to the current bike. That lambda is likely sending the all-important emissions performance of the bike to the array of data loggers and recorders that are mounted to the pillion seat.
Another thing the images tell us about the bike is that it seems quite close to being production-ready. While we have no specific launch date for the Continental GT or the Himalayan 750, we wouldn’t bet against seeing them in the flesh at EICMA this November.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
