Harley Davidson Street 500 launched in US!

Harley Davidson Street 500, the most puny creation from the house of giants, has officially been launched in US. After the unveiling of the Street 750, many people were eagerly waiting for the launch of this baby HD. Now you can become a part of the elite clan of Harley owners by just parting with $6799 (~4.1 lacs), making it the cheapest bike in the HD stable, and also the smallest.

Those rims 🙂

Harley Davidson Street 500: What’s to like?

Here are some features of the Street 500 that you may find attractive:

• 6 speed manual transmission, so less engine wear/fuel consumption on highways, and more fun!
• Great design and finish, looks like a proper Harley and not a cheap afterthought
• All black design philosophy looks cool, with engine, exhaust, rims and fly screen all as black as it gets
• Affordable price, considering you get to be a part of 110 years of tradition!
• Belt drive, like the Street 750. So no oil stains and chain trouble

So overall, not a bad package at all. The bike looks proper, no half measures, although things generally look better in photos than real life. Let’s see what we get when the bike actually hits the Indian stores. 

Looks good in red too!

Harley Davidson Street 500: What’s to hate?

Not everything is rosy with this machine, here are some things that might put you off from getting your check book ready:

• The 494 cc Revolution X engine has nothing revolutionary, it’s just a Street 750 engine with narrow bore that makes only 40 Newtons.No word on the power figure
• Fuel economy is absolutely dismal, at around 17.4 kmpl! That’s superbike range, something is wrong somewhere
• 222 kgs is the weight of the bike. Yes, you read that correctly. I understand Harley bikes with 1700 cc engines need to be heavy, but 222 kgs for a 500 cc bike? How is that even physically possible!
• Looks almost identical to the Street 750, too identical
• The rear of the bike looks weird, almost unfinished. Street 750 also looks equally ghastly around the ass by the way

Some people might argue that they can live with the heavy weight and the low power, since cruisers aren’t really meant to go like stink. What will bother everyone for sure would be the unbelievably low mileage. A Bullet 500 gives around twice the mileage than this, what the hell have HD engineers done?

Is it even coming to India?

Most likely, YES. The Street 750 got a very good response in India, and the Street 500 should be even more popular. The biggest reason why the 750 sold well was the price, which at 4.11 lacs is just staggeringly low. The Street 500 is presently being manufactured at the Kansas City facility of Harley, and importing it may not be a viable option. Hopefully, HD will do the Street 750 magic with the 500, and price it somewhere around the 3.3 lac region.

A Harley Davidson Street 500 priced at 3.3 lacs would be an absolute winner.

Ugly ass?

Hopefully, the bike will be available in India in the beginning of 2015, but there is no official word as of now. The bike looks good in both the gloss black and red colors, although I loved the white color machine that was used for the initial promotion. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, 2015 will bring us many 2 wheeled beauties for sure! But if somebody at Harley is reading this, dude, you might want to increase the mileage, because that’s the first question everyone will ask: Kitna deti hai?