Up until now, Royal Enfield’s massively popular 650 series has been composed of two models—the Interceptor and Continental GT. We already know that more siblings are expected to arrive, all of which will share the same parallel-twin engine and tubular steel frame design. Often compared to Triumph’s Bonneville range of bikes, the upcoming models could make the similarities even stronger.
The Super Meteor, a 650cc cruiser has already been spotted testing around India several times. This time around, the Scrambler 650 was spied roaming the streets of Chennai, and judging from the spy photos from AutoCar India’s Facebook post, it has quite a lot in common with the rest of Enfield’s 650 model range. Now, this isn’t at all surprising, as the bikes have always been designed to look like classic machines. Nevertheless, it adds to the potential choices for would-be buyers, as well as custom builds in the future—something Royal Enfield has been known to encourage.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let’s first discuss what the upcoming Scrambler 650 could hold for us. Well, if the Continental GT is RE’s evocation of a cafe-racer, and the Interceptor is the brand’s standard retro bike, then we can expect the Scrambler to have a focus on dual-purpose riding. As such, chances are the bike will have long-travel suspension, and a more robust frame. Indeed, the spy shots show an inverted front fork—something we haven’t seen yet from Royal Enfield. Furthermore, the frame looks a little bit different, too, particularly in the subframe portion.
As for performance, I don’t think we’re in for much of a surprise with the upcoming Scrambler 650. We can surely expect the same lumpy parallel-twin engine with a beautiful exhaust note, owing to that 270-degree crankshaft. It’ll surely very much mimic the riding character of a big Triumph Twin, and will favor a more torquey power delivery as opposed to a high-strung, performance-oriented V-twin. Chances are the engine will feature similar tuning as that of the 650 Twins, so we’re looking at 47-ish horsepower.
Features-wise, expect Royal Enfield to throw in all its latest tech, such as a Tripper Navigation pod, analog-digital instrument cluster, and dual-channel ABS. At present, we don’t really know when Royal Enfield plans to release the Scrambler 650; the brand’s been spotted testing all sorts of bikes lately. That said, it’s speculated to be released sometime in 2023, perhaps at the same time as the Shotgun and Super Meteor 650.
