Benelli, the Italian pedigree super bike brand, is all set to roll out India-assembled motorcycles from its new assembly plant located near Hyderabad.

The company, part of China’s Qjian Jiang (QJ) group, has appointed Adhishwar Auto Ride India of the Mahavir Group, as its exclusive distributor and assembler. Earlier, it was assembling from a unit near Pune.

The Mahavir Group, which set up an assembly line with a facility to make 7,000 super bikes per annum on a single shift, has begun trial productions through CKD units. Their homologation has also been completed.

The first set of three bikes — Benelli TNT 300, 302R and Benelli TNT 600i — will be relaunched and deliveries will begin from second week of December, Vikas Jhabak, Managing Director, Benelli India, said.

Jhabak said the company plans to launch at least 12 more models by 2020. There is a growing market for these aspirational motorcycles, a segment growing at about 20 per cent year on year.

“We are exploring setting up a larger manufacturing facility in India through a joint venture and are in the process of scouting for land. This facility will also evaluate rolling out of a mass consumer product of 135 cc,” he added.

While the current assembly line plans to focus on the domestic market, the larger plant with a capacity of about 1 lakh units per annum, will be both for domestic market and exports.

Stating that bookings will commence across the country for all the three models, starting with an ex-showroom price of ₹3.5 lakh and going up to ₹6.2 lakh, he said Benelli will be the first super bike-maker to offer 5-year unlimited kilometre warranty.

Benelli plans to offer motorcycle aficionados the highly anticipated TRK 502 (Tourer) and TRK 502X (Adventure) models in India during the first quarter of 2019. The TRK range will also mark Benelli’s entry into mid-capacity adventure segment.

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