Well, well. Look what the guys at Motorcycle.com have found. Royal Enfield is apparently working on two new models in its 650 twin lineup, with release likely in the upcoming months. One will be called the INT Bear 650, or Bear, depending which market you’re in. The other will be called the Classic 650 Twin.
Royal Enfield is on a tear these days, continuing its momentum from the last decade. The most important bike it’s introduced in recent months is the Himalayan 450, with fuel injection and liquid cooling. It’s a long way from the old air-cooled Bullet 350 and other throwback models that typified the RE lineup for so long. But 2023 also gave us the new Shotgun 650 bobber and in 2022, we got the Super Meteor 650. Both bikes were based off the twin-cylinder 650 engine that debuted in 2018—see Costa’s initial review of the INT650 and Continental GT 650 here.
We’ve seen no photos of the new 650 models yet. All we know is that there’s been regulatory paperwork filed to protect their names in Europe and North America. However, that is usually a sign that we will see the bikes within the next year or so. The OEMs know that journos are going over these filings constantly, and they want to keep their cards hidden as long as possible.
But when they’re released, we’d expect the Classic 650 to be exactly what its name sounds like: A retro that’s similar to the current Classic 350 model. As for the INT 650 Bear… maybe it’s a scrambler? Royal Enfield does have the Scram 411 model in its lineup, but we’ve expected another scrambler model based around its 650 twin for years (indeed, at least one Euro subsidiary sold such a machine as their own in-house build). Maybe we will finally see that retro off-roader finally come to market?
