The Continental GT 650 is Royal Enfield‘s way of making the most powerful and the lightest modern day cafe racer which blends retro style with modern appeal perfectly. Powered by a 650cc, parallel-twin, air-oil-cooled engine which generates more power than any other Royal Enfield motorcycle till date. Since its launch in 2010, the Continental looks and feel very much in the 60s’ and 70’s and is unique. Not anymore though.

A Thailand based motorcycle manufacturer called Centaur recently launched a Continental GT lookalike and named it as the Stallion Centaur Siam 150cc. When I say lookalike, I mean a carbon copy. They have basically taken all the retro elements including the body panels off the GT and fixed on a smaller chassis and a smaller 150cc engine.

Funnily, the trend of cafe racer started way back in the 50’s era where people used to race from one cafe to the other before the song finished playing on the cafe jukebox. So to race, they needed the bike to go fast and lose weight. These guys, however, have swapped the 650cc RE engine to their 150cc motor just produces a paltry 10 hp when compared to 47 bhp of the Conti.

Luckily for them, there won’t be much of a hustle with the legislative courts as they have diligently said that this Siam is “inspired by the Royal Enfield English motorcycle.” They also go on to call this 150cc cafe racer as “distinctive”, “unique” and “classic”.

The bike gets similar looking round headlamps which are surrounded by an alloy steering braces, clip-on handlebars, two analog round shaped meters and also the exposed round flank panel at the rear of the motorcycle. The bar-end mirrors are replaced with conventional round ones, and the tank contour gets a black insert on both sides.

The powertrain is, however, a four-stroke, single cylinder, SOHC, air-cooled 150 cc mill, coupled to a 5-speed gearbox. The engine produces 10 bhp of power at 8000 rpm and 10.5 Nm of peak torque at 6000 rpm. There is no fuel injection here as well. The suspension units mimic the GT’s Paioli units but are standard rear suspension setup that includes dual gas-charged springs.

Priced at 62,900 Baht, or $ 2,000, it is a bargain nonetheless when compared to $5,000 price tag of the GT. It is available in red, yellow, white and special colors, a green side and a black side.