New Royal Enfield Himalayan 650 Spotted in the Wild

We can now be fairly sure a Royal Enfield Himalayan 650 is in the works after a disguised prototype was snapped. Royal Enfield's rise has been helped in particular because of their 650cc range which has three different models, but it doesn’t appear as though the Indian company is resting on its laurels, with the engine to be put to further use.

Royal Enfield’s new Himalayan 650 was unable to hide its appearance on the streets of India while undergoing testing, as spotted by Motor Beam. The bike was wrapped in copious amounts of tape, but that didn’t stop the similarities to the 450 Himalayan from being on display.

Much of the same DNA will likely be shared between the two Himalayan models, although the 650 machine will have more grunt thanks to its air-cooled twin engine - 47bhp vs 39.5bhp from the 450’s liquid-cooled single, and more torque (38lb ft vs 29.5lb ft). While similarities do exist, the bike has also undergone changes which were visible, including twin brake discs replacing the single-rotor setup of the 450. An upside-down fork layout has been retained.

The new Himalayan 650 will also receive an upswept exhaust system, dual-sport tyres, and spoked wheels, as you’d expect to see on an adventure bike like this.

It should build on everything we love about the Himalayan 450. That bike features full map navigation system on a neat circular display, a joystick control on the dash which allows you to control music, calls and messages without your hand leaving the bar and combined tail lights and rear indicators. It’s not a basic bike like Royal Enfields of old.

A release date for the bigger capacity version is not yet known, although 2025 is what we’d expect. It’ll be interesting to see which Himalayan ends up being more popular - the 450 or the 650. Which would you have?