The New Jawa Motorcycles from Mahindra
Indian Mahindra Group, especially the motorcycle division has struggled to make its presence felt in the domestic Indian commuter motorcycle segment. It has been around for eight long years, and in that period, it has come out with some decent offerings and some forgettable ones too. It clearly wasn’t working, and so, Mahindra Two-Wheelers has binned that strategy and is now going down the path less chosen – the premium retro motorcycle market, in which one of its newly obtained weapons is the Jawa brand.
To make a long story short. None of the products sold under the Jawa brand till the start of this decade will be brought back, and instead, Mahindra will develop an all-new range. The Jawa motorcycles of the past were beautifully simple, rorty little things. The new ones cannot be the same, of course, because the two-stroke engine is well and truly a thing from the past. But Mahindra says it’s keen on recreating the sound of the older motorcycles.
Mahindra sure has the means to pull this off. Its racing department has its very own technical development center in Varese, Italy, which could chime in with useful in inputs, but a majority of the work on the new motorcycle will be done in India. Once that’s done, the company will be ready to roll the new Jawa motorcycles in large numbers out of its factories in India.
Information is scares, but from what we hear, the proverbial wheels are already in motion. That said, this is going to take time – you’re not likely to see any new Jawa Motorcycles in 2017.
Well, it’s simple, isn’t it? The age of the old-school street bike is upon us. People want more Ducati Scramblers, more Triumph Bonnevilles. It’s a booming segment, and Mahindra could well find itself in a space largely unexplored: that of the cheapish big-hearted roadster. Smartly engine, Mahindra Two-Wheelers will refrain from putting its name on a Jawa, as people may hesitate to shell out a premium for anything badged Mahindra. If you ask me, that’s a sound strategy.
