Yup - the cruiser styling is not my cup of tea, but I can't argue with DS-TVs take on the new R-E. His commentaries are really quite good in my view. His early videos when he was teaching his cutie-pie wife Brooke to ride in a Toronto shopping centre parking lot were well-done and he's obviously gained a lot of credibility because he now goes to press launches etc.
As he points out, its just too bad that Royal-Enfield is ignoring the Canadian market. I have only found one R-E dealer in Ontario and they wanted nearly $10K CAD for an Interceptor a couple of years ago. That is about @ $2500-2800
more than I paid for a brand new-leftover 2017 SV650 in the late fall of 2017 and it had three disks and about 50% more power (48 hp versus 75 hp for the Suzuki) plus a 5-year unlimited mileage warranty and a $500 gas card (holy crap!!).
Now, the SV650 doesn't stack-up to the Interceptor in the looks dept. (IMO), but it is a solid, dead-nuts reliable bike with EFI and ABS and it is much faster with better chassis hardware than the R-E plus it has a seating position that is suitable for my old carcass (even if the pillion pegs are stupidly too high for any lady who'd deign to be seen with me). I had that 2017 SV650, which I really liked, for about a year and half, but I liked my XS650 more and so I sold the SV on to a buddy who needed a good ride quickly.
That is a key point: if you are looking for a modern equivalent to an XS650, I'd check-out the Suzuki SV650. I am convinced that in 30-50 years, guys will be pulling SV650s out of barns and chicken coops and resurrecting them - just as we are these days with our old Yamahas. Parts are plentiful and they are fundamentally very well-built bikes which are nearly unkillable in regular service. Just watch out for any drilled fasteners (i.e., for safety wire) as a lot of SV650s are used as track bikes and those poor things get thrashed very hard.
Heck - the SV even has a decent oil filtration system with a real spin-on filter, a brushless alternator and an electric starter that never fails.....
Anyhow, Royal-Enfield's pricing in my market is nothing more than gouging.....and that p!sses me off.
Pete