Autocar India broke the story exclusively that Royal Enfield is working on a Himalayan 440 late last year. Early last month, we had reported that the motorcycle will launch on September 4; now, the Himalayan 440 has been spotted at a dealership suggesting that the bike will likely be available for purchase right after the official launch.
- Himalayan 440 will share the same engine and chassis as the Scram 440
- Major differences from Scram 440 will be the wheels and suspension setup
- Likely to get new colour options
Himalayan 440: What will be different from the Scram 440?
The Himalayan 440 will be mostly identical to its road-biased sibling
To recap, Royal Enfield Scram 440’s LS440 engine makes 25.4hp at 6,250rpm and 34Nm at 4,000rpm; a marginal improvement over the LS411’s 24.5hp at 6,500rpm and 32Nm at 4,250rpm, thanks to a 3mm larger bore. We don’t expect any changes to the engine on the Himalayan 440, considering the Himalayan 411 and Scram 411 shared identical engines.
We had also predicted that the major difference between the Himalayan 440 and the Scram 440 should be the wheel and suspension setups. The Scram has a 19-inch front wheel with a 17-inch rear wheel. The image now shows the Himalayan 440 with what appears to be a 21-inch unit and it has the wire spoked rims with tubed tyres, similar to the 411. It’s unclear which variant of the Himalayan 440 this is, and we’ll have to wait to see if Royal Enfield will offer a higher variant with cross spoked rims with tubeless tyres. At the very least, they should be available as an add-on accessory. The other difference should likely be the longer suspension travel.
Slightly updated instrument cluster from the Scram 440
Tripper navigation pod could be a standard offering
One new piece of information we’ve learned from the image of the bike at the dealership is the new instrument cluster and switch gear with the latter identical to the ones on the Scram 440. But, gone is the Himalayan 411’s aircraft-looking four pod instrument cluster, with a simpler twin-pod cluster taking its place. This means that the Himalayan 440 will also miss out on a tachometer, like the Scram 440 but gains the tripper pod for Google Maps powered turn-by-turn navigation. However, there could be a lower variant with just the speedometer.
Also visible is a white rear fender which teases the colour options as well. The original Himalayan 411 was a popular product and with the 440, Royal Enfield is aiming to offer a simpler alternative to the mechanically more complex Himalayan 450. Hence, it’s not a stretch to infer that they’d want to position it as a distinct offering from the existing motorcycles, with a unique palette of colour choices on offer.
Besides these two things, the motorcycle looks identical to the Himalayan 411, which should be good news to its fans. We’re just three days away from the Himalayan 440’s launch where we will learn more details on pricing and features, what Royal Enfield has changed, and perhaps more importantly, what it hasn’t from the much loved Himalayan 411.
Image credit: ninjakitten21 (Reddit)