The return of the legendary Hero Karizma is less than two weeks away and the company keeps drip-feeding us with teasers about the new XMR model. This time around, the company has given us a closer look at the LED headlight and teased the silhouette of the Karizma XMR again.
Karizma XMR LED headlight
The LED headlight unit on the Karizma XMR bears more than a passing resemblance to the one on the Hero Xoom. The unit comes with Hero’s increasingly common H-shaped DRL pattern and also a few LED projector lights. Considering that the Xoom also gets a ‘Corner Bending Light’ function on its top-spec ZX variant, the Karizma XMR could also sport this technology.
Karizma XMR: what we know so far
While it hasn’t been revealed yet, the Karizma XMR is expected to debut an all-new liquid-cooled, single-cylinder mill which will likely displace around 210cc.
Previously, a design patent had also given us a look at the rear of the bike. The slightly top-ish angle of the patent brings out the layers of the side fairing, and it is a rather intricate and neat-looking design. It also shows the raised clip-on handlebars (similiar to the recently launched Xtreme 200S 4V) that attach to the top of the conventional front fork. The choice to stick with a right-side-up fork is interesting, since Hero’s more affordable Xtreme 160R 4V comes with a more premium golden upside-down front fork on its top-spec Pro variant.
Hero tends to price its products quite aggressively, and hence, we expect the new Karizma XMR to be positioned around the Rs 1.80 lakh mark (ex-showroom). Once launched, the Hero Karizma XMR will rival the hugely popular Yamaha R15 V4 (Rs 1.81 lakh-1.94 lakh) and the Suzuki Gixxer SF 250 (Rs 1.92 lakh-2.02 lakh). Although, from what has been seen thus far, it is likely to be more of a sport tourer in nature, similar to the Suzuki.
Ved Janve
Vishal Venugopal
