Royal Enfield unveils 650cc Parallel Twin engine, bikes with new engine expected by April 2018

Royal Enfield has finally revealed the beast of an engine which will make it to their new flagships that are scheduled to arrive in April 2018. The Chennai-based company has unveiled its new 650cc twin parallel engine that could power its future bikes. Two of which are expected to launch in a couple of days at the Milan Motorcycle Show.

The engine was revealed to the Overdrive team at Royal Enfield's UK Technical Center at Bruntingthorpe, near Leicester in UK. According to their report, the bikes are still in pre-production stage. However, the company has confirmed that these bikes will be produced on mass scale in 2018.

So far, this report corroborates the previous leaks about the new Royal Enfield bikes. If these leaks are to be trusted, Royal Enefield might launch two different styles of bikes with this new engine. One, with a raised street-style handle bar and another inclined towards the cafe-racer design.

According to Royal Enfield, the company chose a more modest engine in terms of power to initialize most buyers to this new segment without sacrificing on the current Royal Enfield loyalists. The design of the new engine takes visual cues from the 1948 500 Twin, which was in circulation for just ten years.

As far as the name is concerned, the rumour mill suggests that this bike will be named after the Interceptor line-up that was first introduced in 1960.

The engine is estimated to have a cruising range of 120-135 kmph. The engine comes mated with a six-speed gearbox that also gets slip-assist clutch to reduce the lever effort. The 648cc engine will make 47PS of peak power at 7,100rpm and 52nm torque at 4000rpm.

The company's India head claims that this engine will miss on Royal Enfield's traditional thump but will introduce a new 'rumble' for the users. India will be one of the first countries to get the bikes with new the engine later next year.