Hero MotoCorp has a lot of products lined up for the next two years and the Impulse 250 is certainly not one of them.
Post its break-up with Honda, Hero launched four new products immediately which were the Passion xPro, Maestro, Ignitor and the Impulse. These four products can’t be touched as per the agreement with Honda although Hero can sell them for eternity with changes to the colours and graphics. That’s the reason why the aforementioned bikes received colour changes last year.
The product which will never come is the Impulse 250 so every time you read about it, take that news with a bucket load of salt. If Hero could, it would have plonked in the Karizma’s engine into the Impulse but India’s largest bike maker can’t make any changes to the Impulse. Thus the 150cc motorcycle will sell as it is till it’s pulled of the market. The company did stop production quite sometime back but there is still stock lying at many dealers as demand for the Impulse has been very poor.
Hero will launch a 250cc off-road bike based on the HX250R platform but that is still sometime away as the full-faired and street-fighter versions of the HX will come before. The quarter-litre Hero bike is still a few months away from launch and is expected to go on sale around the festive season. EBR’s bankruptcy won’t affect the launch of the HX250R as the motorcycle is near the testing phase but other products like the Hastur will be severely impacted. But Hero fans have nothing to worry about as the company has set-up a strong R&D centre with ex-BMW man, Markus Braunsperger heading it.
