Jawa 42 FJ: The Answer

Classsic Legends have expanded the Jawa line up with the launch of the new ‘42 FJ‘ bike and it honors the founder of the brand: František Janeček. Pricing starts at ₹1.99 lakh, goes up to ₹2.20 lakh (ex-showroom) and it will compete against the Royal Enfield Hunter 350, Honda CB350 RS, Hero Maverick 440 and the Triumph Speed 400.

The 42 FJ is more muscular than the regular 42 and looks larger, more proportional, cleaner, still retaining the iconic Jawa shape. The bike also gets modern touches like all LED lighting, a fully digital instrument cluster and USB charging. Brushed aluminium bits like the pillion grab rails, footpegs and fuel tank give it an upmarket feel.

The seat height remains low and fairly accessible at 790 mm, with the 184 kg kerb weight being almost on par with its rivals. One of the instantly noticable changes is in terms of the higher 178 mm ground clearance, a much needed boost given that the normal 42 tended to rub its belly on larger speedbreakers.

The dual cradle chassis is shared with the Jawa 350 and it houses the 334 cc ‘Alpha 2‘ single cylinder liquid cooled engine that produces 28.8 HP, 29.6 N-m of torque, and it gets the ‘gear based’ engine mapping, also the signature dual exhausts like other Jawa-Yezdi bikes, but the exhaust pipes are upswept this time around. The six-speed gearbox is equipped with a slip and assist clutch.

Conventional telescopic forks at the front and twin shocks at the rear is the suspension setup for this bike. The base spoke wheel version has tubed tyres, but rest of the variants come with alloy wheels and tubeless tyres. On the top trims, the alloys get machine finished spokes. Wheel sizes remain the same for all at an 18-inch front and a 17-inch rear. Also same across the board is the braking setup, discs at both ends and dual channel ABS standard.