One of the juiciest rumours we’ve seen at this year’s EICMA show is a timeline for the Triumph/Bajaj motorcycles.
Back in August, we told you Bajaj and Triumph were teaming up to build mid-sized motorcycles to sell in global markets. And, that’s about all we knew. The whole thing was a bit confusing, since Bajaj already has a similar deal with KTM (Bajaj owns a huge chunk of KTM). But there wasn’t much in the way of follow-up, and we were left to wonder what was going on.
Now, we’ve seen some gossip claiming the team-up will see made-in-India Triumphs on the market by 2021. Supposedly, the bikes will be in the 200-500 cc range—or so the somewhat unreliable Indian moto-press claims.
Perhaps the reason there hasn’t been much chatter on this is that the final terms of the deal haven’t been hammered out. Supposedly the commercial agreements haven’t been completely figured out, and that’s holding the deal up.
Regardless, we’d be surprised if we didn’t see this finalized in the next few months. BMW’s made-in-India bikes are now on the market, as are KTM’s, leaving Triumph on the outside watching in. True, Triumph has factories in Thailand, but that doesn’t grant it access to the bike-mad Indian market—a market where a Brit brand like Triumph still holds a lot of cachet. Triumph can’t afford to wait much longer to make this happen, so expect a move soon.
