It is not every day that a budding automotive designer gets a chance to do a project for a national company that has established itself among the best in the country. Satyajit Kulkarni is one such lucky chap who got an opportunity to showcase his designing talent by being part of a team of young designers who represented a top design institute.
TVS Motors, one of India’s well-known two-wheeler manufacturers, wanted to see what potential the young generation had in terms of designing and styling a different genre of bike that is unseen in the Indian market. TVS wanted Satyajit and his team to design and conceptualise a bike that would represent a new style of biking in the Indian market. They came up with a Supermoto concept. Now, Supermoto is a genre of biking that mixes three different kinds of riding surfaces together. A Supermoto bike is so designed that it can handle well on tarmac, rough surfaces and dirt. Internationally there are championships that are held on such bikes and there are purpose-built tracks that provide the above mentioned surfaces to race on.
TVS have a rich pedigree in circuit racing and motocross racing. Therefore, Satyajit and his team narrowed down on a Supermoto bike for this project. The concept has all the typical traits found on a Supermoto bike. The USD forks seen on the concept are very similar to the ones found on motocross bikes. However, these are thicker than the Motocross USD as they have to perform on tarmac as well as dirt. A Supermoto bike uses wheels that are smaller in diameter than those on a motocross bike because most of the time these bikes are used on tarmac. However, the tyres used are bigger than those found on off-road machines. This is due to the high use of such bikes on tarmac and less on dirt. And keeping that in mind these youngsters have shod the concept with such wheels and tyres. The handlebar is also wide just like a competition Supermoto bike. The suspension of the concept is also a bit lower and stiffer than a motocross bike’s because it makes the bike handle better on tarmac. The overall design of the concept is very much on the lines of a Supermoto and we hope TVS seriously considers building such a bike in the near future.
This concept is based on a liquid-cooled, 250-cc, single-cylinder, four-stroke engine, which is the preferred choice of many manufacturers as it is simpler to built and easier to maintain and costs less than any other configuration. The exhaust design is also sleek and minimal. However, it should have been placed in a higher position than it currently is. The tank and front fender are typical Supermoto and the high, short seat also fits perfectly into a Supermoto’s portfolio.
Besides Satyajit, the team that worked on the concept included Ajay Chaudhary, Varunjeet Bhinder and Madhur Illa. Ajay was responsible of sketching out the concept and it was Satyajit who rendered it in 3D. These youngsters worked very hard on this concept which was also their fourth year project for transportation design at the DSK International School of Design. This concept clearly portrays the highly creative minds of these four students, who proudly call themselves ‘automotive designers’ today!
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