The first-generation Hero Pleasure – which made its debut as the Hero Honda Pleasure back in 2006 – has been taken off the company’s website. It appears as if the scooter has been discontinued after being in production for nearly 14 years. Hero, however, has already filled that space with an all-new model called the Pleasure Plus, which was launched last year.
The older Pleasure was one of the highest capacity scooters in its segment when it made its debut. In the mid-2000s, it took on other lightweight scooters like the TVS Scooty Pep, Kinetic Zing and Bajaj Spirit, all of which sat somewhere near the 80cc mark, while the Pleasure had a 102cc unit. But a lot has changed since then, and 100cc just doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s why the Pleasure Plus gets the 110.9cc engine found in the Duet and standard Maestro Edge, making 8.1hp and 8.7Nm of torque. The dated 102cc powerplant of the first-gen model is not expected to become BS6 compliant.
When the Hero Pleasure was launched, the scooter was marketed as one that catered to women. This new iteration of the scooter continues to follow a similar approach, with its curvy retro styling and low seat height. What gives us more reason to believe that the older Pleasure has been discontinued is how similarly the new Plus is priced. In BS4-spec, the Pleasure Plus only costs Rs 2,000 more than the older Pleasure.
Azaman Chothia
Vishal Venugopal
