BMW and TVS got into a joint venture some time ago to develop a small capacity bike for India. Apparently the deal was to help BMW set up a manufacturing unit in India for cheap manufacturing of their products and give the bikes competitive pricing. In this process TVS was to gain the technical know-how of the bikes and the technology to develop their own indigenous products using that technology, just like what Bajaj and KTM did.
This Joint Venture (JV) has now got its first product, the BMW G 310R. This bike was spied for quite some time now and was given the codename K03 within the circle which gave some ideas of the bike being a 300cc one. But now BMW has given an official press release which states the exact specifications of the bike which are as follows.
This bike is the company’s first sub 500cc motorcycle which has been developed in Munich, Germany but will be made here in India for increased local production and to keep the cost of the bike down to competitive rates. The bike gets a 313cc liquid cooled mill producing 34 HP of power at 9,500 RPM and 28 Nm of torque at 7,500 RPM.
The chassis is a rigid tubular steel frame and the bike gets a rear mono shock and upside down forks on the front. The aluminum swingarm on the rear is quite the looker. The braking duties are performed by a 300mm single disc with a four pot caliper and the rear is a 240mm twin pot floating caliper disc. ABS is standard on the bike and gets 110/70 17 inch radial on the front and 150/60 17 inch radial on the rear for tyres. The tyres source are Metzelers which means they are expected to be super grippy, but be prepared to have them replaced soon as they run out of juice quite early.
The design of the bike is inspired from the high capacity bike from BMW like the BMW S1000R. The bike weighs in at 158 kilos which is quite acceptable for the segment and the seat height is at 785mm which should be good enough for some smaller riders. This is the first ever bike that BMW has developed in Germany but will be manufactured in India company by TVS and will be sold under the BMW brand. TVS thought seem to be working on a similar spec bike in the Apache series which might turn out to be a more affordable offering for the customers.