Harley-Davidson will launch two new motorcycles – the Forty Eight Special and the Street Glide Special – on March 14, 2019. The Forty Eight Special will be a new model to be sold alongside the standard Forty Eight, but the 2019 Street Glide Special will come as a replacement to the 2018 model.
On the Forty Eight Special, the differences are mostly visual as compared to the standard Forty Eight. The fuel tank now features retro graphics and the wheels have gone black. However, the big change is the new tall-boy handlebar that not only raises the rider’s hands higher but also positions them slightly more forward, changing the overall riding position, altogether. That aside, the bike remains more or less the same. It features the same chassis, steering geometry, suspension and tyres. The sportster also shares the 1,202cc, air-cooled, V-twin engine with the standard Forty Eight, making 96Nm of peak torque.
As for the Street Glide Special, it is part of the company’s touring range and described by them as a ‘hot rod bagger’. For 2019, the motorcycle gets the new fully-digital instrument cluster that features music, navigation and other data. Powering it is also Harley’s 1,868cc Milwaukee-Eight 114 engine that makes a colossal 163Nm of torque. The big cruiser also features a large 22.7-litre fuel tank and has a 362kg dry weight.
Interestingly, the standard Forty Eight and the Forty Eight Special have the same price tags in the United States (USD 11,299); and the standard Forty Eight is priced at Rs 10.58 lakh – Rs 11.12 lakh in India, which means, we can expect the Special to have a very similar price tag to the Forty Eight in India. Harley-Davidson already appears to have revealed the price for the 2019 Street Glide Special on the company’s Indian website – it starts at Rs 30.53 lakh. All prices, ex-showroom Delhi.
Azaman Chothia
Vishal Venugopal
