The new Harley-Davidson X440 roadster launched today, finally showing the world the specs and other details of Harley-Davidson’s new made-in-India machine. Built in conjunction with Hero, this is Harley’s second stab at India’s market, but it’s a considerably different machine than the first attempt.
About 10 years back, Harley-Davidson introduced the Street 500 and Street 750 V-twins, which had kinda-sorta contemporary cruiser styling. The new X440 instead hails a bit farther back in history, with a smattering of street tracker DNA and a whole lot of Sportster influence. The wheels, tank, rear fender and seat are all evolutions on the Sporty formula, which might explain partly why it wasn’t mourned more soundly when it disappeared from the MoCo lineup last year—the company knew its spiritual successor was waiting in the wings.
Looks like a CGI paint job on this photo off Harley-Davidson’s India website? Whatever the case, this is another livery offering, along with black, gray and yellow. Photo: Harley-Davidson
The Sportster was always Harley-Davidson’s equivalent to the pony car—without the muscle, flash and attitude of the Big Twins, but leaner and meaner than those machines, fast enough on its own terms. The new Harley-Davidson X440 does not appear to be built along those lines. According to Harley-Davidson’s website, the fuel-injected air/oil-cooled single-cylinder engine puts out 28 lb-ft at 4,000 rpm and 27 hp at the crank at 6,000 rpm. To put that in perspective: Kawasaki’s KZ440 twin put out the same torque but a lot more horsepower (claimed 40 hp) from an engine developed 40 years ago. Of course, that claim may have been been optimistic, but it sounds as if the X440 is a lot more along the lines of similar made-in-India cruisers and roadsters. Competitors like Royal Enfield or even Honda build India-market machines typically putting out less horsepower than you’d expect.
The X440 comes with a six-speed gearbox, chain drive, and claimed fuel economy of 35 km/liter, which works out to 82 miles per US gallon. That sounds like an awful lot, but maybe it’s doable if you’re light on the throttle. Fuel capacity is 3.6 gallons. We’ve seen a claimed weight of 420 lb, but we don’t know if that’s a wet weight or dry weight.
Hero/Harley-Davidson spec’d a 43mm cartridge fork up front, from KYB. In back, there are preload-adjustable dual shocks. The front brake (320 mm disc) and rear brake (240 mm disc) are from ByBre, Brembo’s Indian subsidiary, and dual-channel ABS is standard. The frame is a steel trellis arrangement.
X440带有全面LED照明,电动汽车en a TFT screen with speedo, fuel range, gear indicator, high beam, ABS and sidestand alerts, neutral light, check engine light, and integration to smartphone for navigation, music control, call answering and other mobile features, as long as you have the Connect 2.0 package included.
You can see full specs for the machinehere, along with more photos, and presumably a price tag in the very neat future. The big question now is: If offered in North America at a reasonable price (say, slightly more than competing Royal Enfields): Would you want to buy one? At this point, it has only been confirmed for India, and we suspect other Asian markets will follow.
