Kawasaki Estrella BJ250 lands in India; possibly for benchmarking test by Bajaj

There’ve been a lot of reports being published on the internet about a possible launch of the Kawasaki Estrella BJ250 by its Indian arm. However, we don’t think that’s going to happen.

As part of our research, we found that one unit of the Estrella BJ250 has been imported at a declared value of Rs 4.02 lakh. In the description section, it’s clearly mentioned that this cruiser is here for R&D purposes. However, Kawasaki has its R&D facilities in Japan and Thailand and doesn’t have any such capabilities in India. This makes us believe that the Estrella BJ250 has been imported to India by Bajaj, who recently admitted its intention to compete with Royal Enfield.

So we think the Kawasaki Estrella BJ250 is in India for R&D activities including benchmarking test. And it looks like Bajaj has some serious cruiser ready to compete with the Royal Enfields. While we thought that the Pulsar CS400 was the main contender for Royal Enfield, but it looks like we’ll see more than one cruiser. In fact, the Pune-based manufacturer might create various segments like sports cruiser and traditional cruisers.

We’re hoping to see a couple of these new Bajaj cruiser prototypes being tested around Pune in the next couple of weeks. And if we get lucky, we’ll share them on BikeWale. Stay tuned.