The Royal Enfield Meteor 350 will be powered by a BS6-compliant 350cc 4-stroke single cylinder engine that produces 20.1hp and 27Nm of torque. Power is up by only 1.1hp over the current UCE motor while torque is down by 1Nm. Disappointing!
The excitement and anticipation around the upcoming Royal Enfield Meteor 350 has been unending, although the series of spy shots do not seem to have any ending. It has almost become the Mahindra Thar of the motorcycle world. Well, Royal Enfield would have launched the Meteor 350 much earlier but the pandemic disrupted all plans like many other things. A leaked brochure about a week ago revealed the variants and color options for the Meteor 350 and now, another leaked brochure reveals something far more exciting and that’s the specifications of the new 350cc engine.
The Royal Enfield Meteor 350 will be powered by a BS6-compliant 350cc 4-stroke single cylinder engine that produces 20.1hp and 27Nm of torque. To put it into perspective, the power has only gone up by 1.1hp over the current BS6-compliant 346cc UCE engine while torque is actually 1Nm less. That frankly might be disappointing to many. The current-gen UCE motor uses ancient pushrod technology and it was hoped that the J platform’s modern SOHC architecture would certainly produce better numbers.
While that’s one side of the story and it sure is disappointing, there is hope for some respite too. You see, the Meteor 350 isn’t meant to be a performance motorcycle and most of our complains from the current-gen UCE motor were not about its power and torque figures. The biggest drawback of the UCE motor has to be its refinement and that it cannot hold high speeds over an extended period of time without the rider feeling stressed himself. And that is what we expect the more sophisticated and modern J-platform to sort out more importantly.
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The new Meteor 350 really needs to be far less vibey than most RE motorcycles and also retain that characteristic thump. Well, Royal Enfield at least claims they have retained that signature thump. Being a long stroke engine, it will continue to be very torque-ey at low RPMs as well. We also expect the new 350cc engine to be a lot more fuel-efficient than the current UCE motor, thanks to its modern architecture. But we really really hope Royal Enfieldf delivers on a smooth and refined riding experience with this new platform and engine.
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To give you a quick recap, the Meteor 350 will be available in three variants – the base Fireball, the mid-spec Stellar and the top-spec Supernova. Well, these variants are mainly aesthetic and visual differentiators more than anything else. Each variant gets a different paint scheme and some additional cosmetic features. What will be standard across all the three variants of the Meteor 350 are the turn-by-turn navigation and smartphone connectivity. This is a first for a Royal Enfield motorcycle. These features will be accessible via a small roundel in the instrument cluster which is a color TFT unit. We expect the Royal Enfield Meteor 350 to be launched in India by mid-September.
