The darling sports commuter of the Indian bike enthusiasts is about to witness an overhaul. After completing a decade of domination in its category, the Pulsar will witness a reincarnation as a bike with a new heart, new face, and a new running gear. While no official dates for the launch of the bike have been released by Bajaj thus far, the company is planning to make an official statement about the bike sometime in early December. Rajeev Bajaj, the big man at BAL will soon make an official announcement about the bike, along, probably, with a preview of the highly anticipated machine.
So what to expect of the new Pulsar? Will it grow in terms of size, performance, segment and most importantly price? From what we understand following our discussions with people in the know of the proceedings at the Pulsar project is that the bike will most definitely witness a complete overhaul as regards design and engineering. The design, while retaining some of the signature visual aspects and proportions of the bike, will be entirely new. The new Pulsar will carry the front heavy, sporty stance of its predecessor; albeit with an entirely new take on design. Expect every panel on the bike to be replaced. There will be new instruments, new headlamps, new tail-lamps, new alloys, new swing-arm , new seats – the bike essentially will have an entirely new, more vibrant personality.
So will the new Pulsar see a much bigger engine throbbing within its frame? Will BAL take the game a notch higher by outfitting the new Pulsar with a twin cylinder mill, or would that be a little too much to expect? To be very frank, we find the possibility of the Pulsar getting a twin cylinder engine quite bleak. You see, there is a segment that the Pulsar represents, and there are certain volumes associated with a certain segment and with a certain price bracket. The Pulsar without doubt is the leader in its segment, and does volumes which are more than what some less popular 100cc bikes manage. Adding a twin-cylinder engine would most definitely push the cost of the bike up by a significant margin, shifting the price bracket of the brand a notch above, into a segment where the volumes aren’t big enough for a mainstream brand like the Pulsar. And doing that wouldn’t really make much sense from a marketing perspective. The Pulsar will probably feature a big single, which may stretch up to 250cc to take the fight to the CBR250R. The new engine is expected boast some new technology which pushes the specific power output up by 10% or so, and in turn claims the rights to be marketed as the most powerful machine in its segment. The new Pulsar, even if it manages to match the Ceeber in terms of power output and performance will retail at a substantially lower price to that of the Honda, as being a Pulsar, it’ll have to shoulder the responsibility of selling in much higher numbers than the Honda, or even a Yamaha R15 for that matter.
Technology wise, we expect the Pulsar to be a much superior product. Component quality is one area where Bajaj claims to have really focused on, and the new Pulsar is murmured to be the shining exponent of Bajaj’s newfound commitment to quality. Having been engineered from the scratch, the new Pulsar is expected to feature a new wheelbase length, new front suspension, a new rear mono-shock unit, new swing-arm and a new geometry for the chassis – all in favor of a new dynamic behavior which would make the Pulsar a far superior product in terms of vehicle dynamics and handling as compared to the current iteration.
New features would abound, although it’s very difficult to envisage what these new features would really be. While Bajaj have managed to keep all the information about the new bike away from us in an air tight container, the lid for the jar is just about to be opened. We don’t know the finer details about the product, but we can promise you that the new Pulsar will present itself to you before the year 2011 bids us adieu.