5 Bikes that flopped in India, proving Indians can be the toughest customers to convince

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You know how they say understanding women is tough? Try being an automotive product designer in India, trying to understand the minds of the people. Now I say this because there are several vehicles on this list that were way ahead of their time, and some that were perfectly on time. But they failed anyway while others prospered. Some on the list failed thanks to off the mark pricing strategies. The point is that accurately positioning a new product in India can get hideously complicated, which is why we tend to stick to the same brand name for decades. *cough* Bullet *cough*

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We’ll start with the Hero Impulse, India’s second small-capacity dirt bike. (Spoiler alert the first one’s on this list as well). Now for the most part the guys who tested them back in the day raved about the bike. It’s on and off-road capabilities and what have you. The problem was that the market couldn’t give a rat’s posterior. The Hero Impulse flopped hard and then was pulled from production. To a niche segment it was the ultimate project bike, the rave being Karizma engine swaps.

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Next up the Kawasaki Bajaj SX 100 Enduro, was the first ever enduro small-capacity dirt-ish bike that we had in the country. It had the much sought after KB100 and some intensely dirt bike looks. It was famously ahead of its time and was utterly turned down by the Indian market. It lived a short life before Bajaj pulled the plug on their enduro program. The strange thing is that while the last two bikes failed the Himalayan which was launched a year ago(with plenty of teething issues) is doing reasonably well. Image Source: xBHP.com

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Now a lot of people will agree that most LML’s were styled ahead of their time, but lacked a lot in build quality. The Adreno had a 109.1cc 4-stroke 3 valve engine and an ahead of its time half fairing. Something like the one you get on the Karizma of present day. It was launched in 2001 and lived a short life before, disappearing into obscurity. Image Source: moto.zombdrive.com

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Mahindra’s first steps into the world of two-wheeler commuter motorcycles, produced two hideous flops, the Mahindra Centuro and the Pantero. These two 110cc technical disasters were suspiciously cheap, and had terrible horrible reliability and ride quality. Needless to say there were no takers. The bikes were pulled silently from showrooms.

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The Suzuki Inazuma 250 as a motorcycle was perfect. The engine was buttery smooth, the build quality was super bike par, the long riding position was super comfortable even after hundreds of kilometers. This was cool case of pricing gone wrong, it was just too expensive and although it spent some time in showrooms, there were close to no takers.