Originality isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. To reinvent, to excite and, yet, somehow remain so true to your DNA. The brief that culminated into the Royal Enfield Hunter 350 can’t have been an easy one to deliver on. But Royal Enfield has owned its originality for over 120 years. Of course it was going to deliver.
The Hunter 350. In an instant, after the covers came off in 2022, it was all about the Hunter versus the herd. One would expect the entry-point into a legacy brand’s model line-up to be mild and safe but the Hunter came armed with focus and fun. It’s everything Royal Enfield has represented over the years and, yet, something entirely and refreshingly original.
Vibrant, muscular and instantly recognisable as a Royal Enfield, the Hunter is intriguingly different from the rest of the range offered by the brand. It truly owns the bold colours it flaunts and looks right at home in the coolest neighbourhoods across the world. Whether you choose to keep things classic with the Retro variant or step it up with the Metro variant, the Hunter 350 looks unapologetically youthful, balancing its proportions with a nuanced ease. It really isn’t a surprise, then, that the Hunter clocked over 1 lakh sales within the first six months of being launched and has now already crossed the 1.5 lakh mark. The Hunter was meant to be a stepping stone into the world of motorcycling and the Royal Enfield brand, and it did exactly that. But it also did a lot more.
Given its sublime performance, with plenty of torque and a thrilling flow of power courtesy its 349cc J-series motor, the Hunter 350 is unsurprisingly engaging on the road. Through the expanse of the concrete jungle, the Hunter’s low-end pep makes for great fun, with the pulse of the motor providing just the right sensations in a refined, vibration-free manner. The 5-speed gearbox is particularly slick, providing a neat mechanical ‘click’ with every shift that lends itself perfectly to the engine’s analogue demeanour. The new frame paired with the 17-inch wheels makes Hunter 350 a joy to ride through the city streets, while on the highway, it feels free-spirited, confidently holding its own and making light work of distances.
It came as no surprise, then, that the Hunter 350 bagged the coveted 2023 IMOTY (Indian Motorcycle Of The Year) Award. It’s not just about how well-engineered or generously equipped the Hunter is, but the promise it presents to an entirely new set of eager motorcyclists: of being the key to a pure riding experience.
The Hunter has contributed significantly to the RE fan following but, more importantly, it has fired up the imagination of a generation that always wanted the effortlessly cool aura of a Royal Enfield but didn’t know where to begin. Like a shot of espresso, the Hunter 350 is a machine that packs all intense flavours of motorcycling into one agile and stylish package.
