“Everything is redesigned”: Harley-Davidson’s Glen Koval on the Sprint 440

In 2011 Harley-Davidson opened a plant at Bawal in Haryana to put together kits shipped in from America. That was how volumes in the motorcycle business worked. The global brand designed and built the bike; India assembled it to reduce import taxes. Three years later the Street 750 and 500 rolled out of Bawal and were exported to Europe and Asia, but American Street 750s were still made in the USA, from the Kansas City plant. Harley shut Bawal in 2020. Now, at EICMA in Milan, the Sprint 440 turns that arrangement on its head.

The Sprint 440 is Harley’s new entry-level cruiser, revealed on 2 November ahead of its public debut at the show. It uses the X440’s 440cc air- and oil-cooled single, makes 27PS and 38Nm, and starts at $5,999 (₹5.7 lakh) in the US and £4,995 (₹6.3 lakh) in the UK – which is double the ₹2.9 lakh the X440T costs in India. Nevertheless that makes it the cheapest petrol Harley on sale. Hero MotoCorp makes most of the components in India. Bikes for the American market, get their final assembly at Harley’s plant in York, Pennsylvania, from spring 2027.

Neither Hero MotoCorp nor Harley-Davidson have spelt it out, but our reading is simple: if Hero builds the motorcycle and York does the final assembly, what crosses the Atlantic are CKD kits. That makes this one of the first times an Indian company has sent CKD kits to a global manufacturer for it to assemble. For decades it has been the other way round, with global brands shipping kits to India to be screwed together here, Harley at Bawal included. Now an Indian company is supplying the home factory of America’s most American motorcycle brand. For Indian industry, that is huge.

Harley insists the Sprint is not a re-badged X440. To find out what changed, and how much of it is Indian, I sat down with Glen Koval, Senior Vice President of Global Motorcycle Development at Harley-Davidson.

How is the Sprint different from the X440 that Harley sells in India?

"It’s completely different. We looked at this motorcycle and said we want to do only what Harley would do. So we went into the engine, the frame, the swingarm; we dropped the suspension, changed the fenders, and all the electronics are different. Everything has been redesigned and redeveloped by Harley-Davidson."

When the X440 launched in India, your then CEO was here for the launch. Why didn’t you do all this at the start of the programme, rather than making alterations later?

"Our partnership with Hero started with building our business and our market in India itself. That’s what the X440 does, and that’s what our partnership with Hero does. We’re now expanding into more of our core products – what we want to do with Harley-Davidson globally – and that demands a different motorcycle."

And the Sprint goes on sale in Europe as well as the US?

"Yes. We just launched it yesterday. It will go to all of our major markets globally first, and we’re working on bringing it to the US at a slightly later date."

Where does it sit in your range, in terms of both price and positioning?

"In terms of positioning, this will be a really good entry-level bike for people who haven’t ridden motorcycles before. It will also be a great bike for people who have never ridden a Harley-Davidson. So an experienced rider can come into our brand on a very affordable, accessible motorcycle that is very, very fun to ride, and then ideally grow into bigger bikes with us. We look at it as a launching point: a way to enter the brand, and a way in for those who want to start riding."

You talk about the uniquely Harley-Davidson character of this motorcycle. Can you elaborate?

"It’s all look, sound and feel. That’s where it starts. We want it to look the part. We want it to feel like a cruiser, where you feel that emotion as you’re riding. How it looks, how it sounds and how it feels is super important, and everything we touch and do revolves around that."

Was all the engineering work done in Milwaukee?

"It was a collaboration between Milwaukee and Hero. Mostly Milwaukee."

Can you put a percentage figure on the components that come out of India versus the US?

"I don’t know that I can comment on that."

evo India comment

Neither Harley-Davidson nor Hero MotoCorp will publicly comment on it but the Sprint is, for all intents and purposes, the X440 tweaked for export markets. The switchgear is new, the fuel tank is new, and the saddle height is lower but rest of the bike looks the same while the engine makes identical power and torque so it is highly unlikely any components of the motor have changed. Also the claim of the Sprint having an all-new frame seems unlikely and will need a more thorough investigation. The big question is whether the Sprint will join the X440 and X350T in Harley showrooms in India and our sources say that it should happen by the year end. But before that another variant off the X440 will hit Harley Davidson’s Indian showrooms. For more on that check out our interview with Hero MotoCorp CEO Harshvardhan Chitale.