Kinetic Honda: India's most iconic scooter is back as an EV | Gone But Not Forgotten | evo India

The Kinetic Honda was not just a scooter. It was a ticket to freedom for an entire generation of Indians — the first gearless, electric-start two-wheeler in the country, the scooter that every mother bought and every son borrowed. No premix oil, a flat floorboard in which you could load with groceries, indicators that actually worked, and a Japanese engine that did not break down every second day.

In 1984, the Firodias tied up with Honda and changed the two-wheeler landscape in India forever. This is the story of the Kinetic Honda — from its arrival in India to the Sahara Desert crossing, the Guinness World Records, the motorsport victories, the messy Honda-Ferodia breakup that gave birth to the Honda Activa, and the slow decline that ended with Mahindra buying out the operations in 2008. And then, forty years on, the Kinetic name is back. As an electric scooter.

In this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten, we ride the original Kinetic Honda and also showcase one of the two actual scooters that crossed the Sahara in 1991, covering 6,000 kilometres in 21 days from Morocco through Niger to Nigeria — alongside the new electric Kinetic to find out whether a name built on revolution can survive on nostalgia alone.

The original Kinetic Honda was iconic because it was better than everything on the road. Lighter, faster, easier and more high-tech than anything Indians had seen. The new electric Kinetic is entering a crowded room full of high-performance electric two-wheelers. It is functional. It has a few clever features. But does it stir the industry the way the original did?

The Kinetic Honda also holds a special place in Indian motorsport — Gulf Monsoon Scooter Rally victories, dirt track champion-of-champions races, a Guinness record for 1001 hours of continuous running covering 30,965 kilometres without stopping, and another for reaching Khardung La. For a 98cc two-stroke gearless scooter, it punched well above its weight in every possible direction.

Gone But Not Forgotten drops every second and fourth Thursday. Subscribe and never miss one.

0:00 Introduction
1:17 Kinetic Honda history
2:02 Kinetic Honda: the scooter for everyone
3:44 Convenience of a Kinetic Honda
4:23 Engineering of the Kinetic Honda
5:20 Operation Sahara Attack with the Kinetic Honda
5:44 Kinetic Honda at Motorsport events in the 90s
6:02 Guinness World Records by Kinetic Honda
6:32 Kinetic Honda from Operation Sahara Attack
7:04 Kinetic electric
7:28 Why did Kinetic Honda disappear?
7:52 The Kinetic and Honda breakup story
8:52 Does the Kinetic electric scooter make sense?
9:40 Unique features of the Kinetic electric
9:59 Sirish's Kinetic Honda story

#evoIndia #KineticHonda #KineticHondaIndia #GoneButNotForgotten #IndianScooter #KineticElectric #TwoStroke #VintageScooter #HondaActiva #KineticHondaEV #IndianMotorcycle

Want more #ThrillOfDriving videos? Subscribe to the evo India channel: https://bit.ly/2VfzioP
Read our stories here: https://evoindia.com/
Buy #EvoIndiamagazine here: www.evoindia.com/magazine

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evoindia/
Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evoindia/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/evoindia
Official merchandise on 100kmph: http://www.100kmph.com/evoindia

Видео Kinetic Honda: India's most iconic scooter is back as an EV | Gone But Not Forgotten | evo India канала evo India