What goes around comes around: Mahindra Two Wheelers’ first motorcycle to be the revamped “Kinetic” Boss 115?

Kinetic Boss 115

The Kinetic Challenger had it all. When I mean all, how about a replica of the tried and tested horizontal OHC engine that Soichiro Honda designed and put Honda on the world map? How about a similar double cradle chassis that made the Hero Honda Splendor the world’s largest selling motorcycle? Or how about more muscular styling and a better feature set which even included a digital gear indicator? All this and then some more at a price that was significantly lesser than the competition of the time. But still, the Kinetic challenger bombed and bombed miserably as it simply couldn’t match the quality levels of the competition, read the Hero Honda Splendor and the Bajaj Boxer.

Quality being Kinetic Engineering’s biggest bane saw the Kinetic Boss fizzle out even though it had all the ammo to go great guns. The story we’ve heard so often: Great idea-> dismal quality product-> Market says thumbs down. Kinetic Engineering cannot be faulted for persistence though. Persist it did, by going back to the drawing board and coming up with the Kinetic Boss, which essentially was a higher quality Kinetic Challenger, albeit with the frills chopped off for a cheaper price tag. The motorcycle managed to make a bit of a headway in the Indian hinterland while Indian urban office goers still shunned Kinetic’s economuter with a vengeance as the bitter memory of the Kinetic Challenger’s bugbears were still fresh.

Not even the Indian cricketing legend Kapil Dev’s exhortation with the “Dum Hain Boss” ad campaign could really get the Boss’s sales moving up and high. But despite being a fringe player, the Kinetic Boss did manage to be one of Kinetic’s decent sellers and thus spurred the men it white coats at Kinetic to build on the Kinetic Boss’s good showing, relatively speaking of course. So, in came the Kinetic Boss 115 which was positioned as a more bang for each buck bike. A 113cc engine replaced the 97.2cc mill and these extra bit of cubes gave the Boss 115 eager legs, but the legs simply didn’t have the tone, looks and the smoothness that the market leading Hero Honda Splendor did possess in ample measure.

Despite being priced well, the faster and almost equally frugal Kinetic Boss 115 simply was more like a ruggedly beautiful woman as compared to the Hero Honda Splendor’s quintessential feminity. Now, how many men really, would go bonkers at a Sandra Bullock as opposed to say a Catherine Zeta Jones? You get the picture, don’t you? Bottom line: The Kinetic Boss 115 was a markedly better effort by Kinetic Engineering and this was one dark horse that would have sold steady with a pinch of refinement before fate had different plans with Kinetic Engineering itself going belly up.

Since then, Mahindra Two Wheelers has taken over the now defunct Kinetic Engineering and along with that has inherited a bunch of products out of which the Kinetic Boss 115 happens to be one of them. India is shining, excuse the cheesiness, and as a result more and more Indians are dumping their bicycles and walking shoes for entry level economuters. Mahindra Two Wheelers knows this and to grab a slice of India’s biggest motorcycle segment, it is firming up plans to relaunch the Boss 115, albeit with a new heart.

Apparently, the revamped Mahindra Boss 115 will come with a Chinese engine. That is one thing that scares me silly as the Chinese single pot engines I’ve seen so far on the Kandaa 125 and the Rock 100 have been utterly terrible examples of four stroke engines to say the least. With this nagging thought in mind, I can only hope that Mahindra Two Wheelers brings in a refined engines as refinement was the biggest bane of the Boss 115 when it was in Kinetic Engineering’s portfolio.

All said, I’m still baffled as to why Mahindra Two Wheelers cannot go ahead and design a bomb proof ultra refined engine, now that Mahindra & Mahindra owns Engines Engineering of Italy which has thus far gone ahead to design and build engines for MotoGP too. Whatever be the case, Chinese or no Chinese, I hope Mahindra Two Wheelers comes up with something that is a very strong overall package in the economuter segment , for, bomb proof simplicity rather than fizz and trickery is the name of the commuter game.

Image Courtesy: ILoveIndia

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June 26, 2010 | By Jay Prashanth · Tags: Kinetic Boss, Kinetic Boss 115, Kinetic Challenger, Kinetic Engineering Limited, Mahindra Two Wheelers Motorcycle

Comments

3 Responses to “What goes around comes around: Mahindra Two Wheelers’ first motorcycle to be the revamped “Kinetic” Boss 115?”

Shivam on June 27th, 2010 11:59 am

bad bikes
DHRUV GUPTA on June 27th, 2010 11:02 pm

well a good initiative by mahindra to revamp the the old boss I give them good wishes and may their sales increases.If they like I want to work with mahindra,s and open their dealership in west uttarpradesh.
SANJAY on September 6th, 2010 7:22 pm

ITS NOT GOOD TRY

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