South Korean motorcycle maker Hyosung has now made it official. The brand has split with Indian sun film major Garware, with whom it had an alliance for the Indian motorcycle market. Hyosung’s new partner would be DSK Motowheels, a part of the DS Kulkarni group which has varied interests from real estate of car dealerships. In fact, DSK runs a chain of Toyota dealerships in western India and is known for its high quality of service. So, that should be a source of solace to existing owners of Hyosung motorcycles in the country.
DSK Motowheels will take over the motorcycle assembly operations from Garware and will now operate the plant at Wai, Maharashtra. DSK is expected to begin assembling engines and transmissions from the Wai plant, which until now fitted fully built engines and transmissions into completely knocked down(CKD) kits of the 3 motorcycles that Hyosung sells in India currently. Assembling engines and transmissions in India from CKD kits will result in the cost of motorcycles going down as CKD kits only attract 10% duty as opposed to the 75% duty on completely built units(CBU).
So, expect the prices of existing Hyosung motorcycles to drop if DSK Motowheels begins assembling all the engines that power these motorcycles. For now though, Hyosung’s next launch in India, the fully faired GT250R will have an engine assembled in India. This is expected to allow DSK-Hyosung to price this motorcycle very competitively, which is quite frankly the need of the day considering that this motorcycle will have to compete with very strong Japanese products like the Honda CBR250R and the Kawasaki Ninja 250R. The 2012 Hyosung GT250R will feature a V-Twin oil cooled 250cc four stroke engine.
2012 Hyosung Comet GT250R
The motorcycle features a DOHC layout with four valves per cylinder. The 250cc engine produces a peak power of about 28 Bhp and a peak torque of 23 Nm. In the coming months, DSK-Hyosung plans to launch many more products. A 250cc and a 650cc cruiser are the two motorcycles DSK-Hyosung will launch in the next few months. Currently, the brand has three products in India, the GT650R, the GT650N and the ST7. With the addition of the GT250R, this number will go up to four. The Hyosung GT250R will be launched on the 13th of June, 2012. Watch this space.
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