Benelli Imperiale 400
It’s our fourth month with the Benelli Imperiale 400, and now that we’ve been taking it out on the road quite often and having spent some more time in the saddle, I thought that I’d focus on some of the finer details that you only get to know when you’ve spent a good deal of time on the motorcycle. This month I’d like to focus my report on the instruments on the Benelli 400, we’re talking aesthetics, functionality and most importantly legibility. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to take a closer look at the instruments, the Imperiale 400 employs an old school twin-pod instrument cluster that is a well-balanced synergy of retro-classic and modern functionality. The pods house an analogue speedometer and tacho, the white backlit theme looks exceptional and the clear fonts make it easy to read too. The speedometer also houses a neatly integrated LCD that displays basic info like time, odometer, fuel gauge and gear position indicator. In between the two analogue clocks is a vertically oriented LCD fuel gauge, what stands out is the neat positioning and clear eye-line view. Aside from the fact that it misses out on a Bluetooth connectivity feature, the Benelli can boast of having the most aesthetically pleasing and legible instrument clusters in the segment. This aside, there is one gremlin that makes it onto this report, with rust beginning to creep in on the chrome rearview mirrors. This is something that owners will have to look out for but can be fixed with a little attention to the chrome and regular cleaning and polish. It’s not a terminal issue, but just something to look out for if you like to keep your motorcycle looking the way it did when you got it. In other good news, Benelli has also announced price cut for the Imperiale 400 by Rs 10,000 bringing the ex-showroom price to a very compelling Rs 1.89 lakh, and that just adds to Benelli’s value offering.
VERTICALLY ORIENTED LCD FUEL GAUGE IS THE NEAT POSITIONING AND CLEAR EYE-LINE VIEW