The 100cc Twister, in Honda’s own terms, is a ‘fun’ motorcycle – which in our terms translates into a motorcycle aimed at the youth, either with a sprightly performance or with flamboyant styling. Knowing Honda, we went ahead and compared the Twister ‘fun bike’ to the king of the 100cc commuter segment, the Splendor. As most of you might have read, our compare revolved around the engine characteristics of both the bike. We were pretty sure that Honda will use the 100cc engine from the Twister and build a typical commuting workhorse around it to cater to the market that Hero Honda has dominated for a while now.
And guess what, that is exactly what has happened! While addressing the media during the launch of the Honda VFR1200F in India a few days back, HMSI President and CEO, Shinji Aoyama, with respect to a question raised about the possibility of a 100cc sub-Twister motorcycle, said, ”Yes we may need to go there in the future. We are going to enter into the mass segment. However, there is nothing concrete on this at this moment”.
But you can rest assured that ‘concrete’ development is already happening with respect to the new motorcycle. If you haven’t guessed it already, the bike will be priced lower than the Twister and instead of aiming at Splendor or Passion, it will go head on against its oldest sibling – the Hero Honda CD100 / CD Dawn. Cannibalisation? No, a simple strategy of dominating the market share between two sister brands…