The 400cc Sweet Spot. Throttle Therapy
Throttle Therapy by Christopher Chaves. Feb'26 EditionThere was a time when uttering 'CB400 Super Four' in India was enough to stop conversations mid-sentence. Four cylinders. Liquid cooling. That engine note. Back then, 400cc wasn't just a number - it was an event. Even today, if you look at it purely in terms of cubic capacity, it still feels slightly unhinged in the most wonderful way. And yet, context is everything.
In the same era, we had motorcycles like the Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird and the Suzuki Hayabusa hunting each other down on racetracks and highways with all the subtlety of apex predators. On track, sure, they made sense. On Indian roads, on a Tuesday morning commute? Not so much. Enormous power, enormous heat, enormous maintenance bills - and not enough road to stretch their legs unless you were very friendly with airport runways. That's where 400cc quietly starts making a lot of sense.
Go back further and you'll remember how modest our beginnings were. Cast-iron Bullets that doubled up as oil diffusers, the Honda CB100, the immortal Splendour. Efficient, dependable and completely uninterested in entertaining you. Eventually, boredom set in. And boredom, as history dictates, always leads to faster motorcycles.
Enter the Suzuki Samurai, Shogun, Yamaha RXZs, and ported-and-polished 135s running Proton silencers loud enough to summon dogs from neighbouring districts. Organised speed runs became a thing - stripped-down motorcycles buzzing down the quarter mile like angry mosquitoes on caffeine. Performance had arrived, and we liked it.
Then came motorcycles that shifted the baseline entirely. The Hero Honda CBZ. The Bajaj Pulsar. Suddenly, speed wasn't niche - it was accessible. And looming over it all, like an imported god, was the CB400 Super Four. Insane then, still insane now.
Fast forward to today, and here's the part that genuinely makes me smile: the 400cc motorcycle has become normal in India. Whether you want a capable off-roader or a mean street rocket, you have multiple genres of motorcycles from multiple manufacturers. There are just so many of them around. Indian-made, reasonably priced, properly engineered motorcycles with just the right amount of power to keep you entertained - and not so much that your service advisor knows your children's birthdays.
Bajaj deserves serious credit here. From building their own performance bikes to roping in Kawasaki, partnering with KTM and Triumph, and casually owning a major stake in KTM. That's not experimentation - that's long-term vision.
And now, the big boys are paying attention. BMW stepping into the 450cc space with the upcoming 450 GS is proof. A do-it-all motorcycle promising the right balance of power, ability, features and actual usability. Not excessive. Not intimidating. JustÂ… right.
Is 400cc the sweet spot? Absolutely. Enough to thrill, sensible to own, and versatile enough to do almost everything. Bigger isn't always better. Sometimes, smarter is faster.