"Angry bull"

According to this article about the new Bullet 500: "On the road, these numbers translate into one thing- this is one angry bull. 

Enfield leader in superbikes!

At least in India!

Sidecar machine gun battery assembled

From The Motor Cycle, December 10th 1914.

Sidecar wins in South Africa

We have reported that in 2010 a 1922 Royal Enfield sidecar rig won a race in South Africa. This was a repeat of the spectacular performance in 1914 in which three sidecar rigs cinched the number one, two and three positions in the Cape Peninsula M.C.C. race,

Indian for 1970...

Talk about bad timing. In the December 1969 issue of Cycle News, they run a glowing piece about the new lineup of Indian motorcycles, including the Interceptor-engined 750. Then they redouble by running a fawning piece about how Floyd Clymer is going stronger at 74 in the 13th of January 1970 issue. He would die nine days after the publication of the piece. With him gone the Indian motorcycle company collapsed...

(Ipad readers may need to click on the link to see the articles)

Indian for 1970

Rumbler

Royal Enfield Colombia has started selling the Thunderbird 350cc and 500, except that they call them "Rumbler". This makes a lot of sense, Thunderbird is an English word and in Colombia they speak Spanish, whereas Rumbler... wait, what? :-)

Mumbai police bikes

This article claims the Mumbai police force will be outfitted with new bikes based on the Royal Enfield Classic 350 customized by Road Rage Custom Builds (careful with the link, it's noisy!). It is unclear if the picture is a real picture or an artists' conception...

Firefighting

We have discussed firefighting Royal Enfields in the past. They are still being used (or reintroduced) in New Delhi and Bangalore today. Here is one of the earliest mentions, from October 20th 1913. The 6hp sidecar, for which nothing was impossible, could carry four firefighters and a length of hose.

And if you think those pictures were just staged, here is news from October 15th 1914,

Interceptor in new Mariah Carey video

More on the new plant

This time a video. Wonderful to see the tanks painted by robots but pinstriped still by hand. I wonder how are they going to keep up with the volume?

New plant

The picture shows The Man himself rolling the first unit. Here are some links (1, 2, 3) to articles about the new Royal Enfield plant at Oragadam, and, courtesy of David Blasco of royalenfields.com, the press release. Ipad readers may need to click on the link to see it.

Press release Royal Enfield new Oragadam plant 

Graphic novel

There is a nice graphic novel in the Royal Enfield website.

1902 profits (corrected)

According to "The Bicicling World and Motorcycle Review", a US publication of 1903, the profits of the Enfield Cycle Co. in 1902 were 94,595 Dollars, which adjusted for inflation, would correspond to 2,470,601 Dollars of today. Notice that most of the sales at that time were of bicycles.

PS: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the amounts in Pounds instead of Dollars. Hat tip David Blasco for the correction.

Bonhams Spring Stafford Auction

A leaflet for the Bonhams' Spring Stafford Auction features a 346cc Royal Enfield CO with Burman gearbox.