Yamaha to launch a new model on April 14th 2016

Yamaha has had a bit of a rocky journey in the Indian market. It all started with a bang when the Japanese bike maker brought the RD and the RX series to India. In the nineties too there were some bikes that were quite revered among the Indian riders. But near the dawn of the 21st century Yamaha kind of lost the plot and sales figures fell like a rock in a pond. Then again in 2009 Yamaha made their presence felt again with the launch of the YZF-R15 and the FZ series of bikes. Then the company forayed into scooters with the Ray followed by the Alpha. And so far the journey has been a bit rocky, again. The foray into scooters though garnered a decent initial response from the market but soon ran out of steam. Same was the case with the Alpha. So in an attempt to rekindle its romance with the Indian market, Yamaha recently launched the YZF-R3 and come tomorrow they are planning to add one more model to their product portfolio. 

The details of the launch are yet unclear but we’ve been assured that it will be ‘special’ press conference and a product launch. Our guess is that the chances of the Ray ZR being launched are quite high. The company first showed the scooter at the 2016 Auto Expo. The Ray ZR is basically a facelift version of the Ray Z. It retains the 113cc BLUE CORE engine and the changes are purely cosmetic. It sports new graphics and colour schemes along with a redesigned instrument cluster and a new redesigned headlamp assembly as well. Yamaha had also announced that the Ray ZR when launched will also be offered with cast aluminium wheels with a front disc brake. Initially, the scooter was planned to be launched in March but due to technical reasons the date was shifted to tomorrow, April 14th. The ZR will probably replace the recently discontinued Ray scooter. 

However, the possibility of a 110cc commuter motorcycle also cannot be ruled out as that is the only thing Yamaha doesn’t yet have in its commuter lineup with the Saluto being the smallst commuter at 125cc capacity. It is possible that the company might revive the 106cc single cylinder engine that used to power the old Crux. The engine makes close to 8PS of max power and about 7Nm of peak torque. Although, if launched Yamaha would be looking to play the fuel economy card right. Whatever the case is, we’ll find out soon enough. So stay tuned.