Royal Enfield Motors, manufacturer the iconic Bullet motorcycle line and the world’s oldest motorcycle brand, is building a new manufacturing facility spreading across 50 acres in Chennai, India to help the company meet worldwide demand for its iconic motorcycles. The new plant should be completed in 2013 and will be able to more than double Royal Enfield’s current capacity of 70,000 units per year to 150,000 units per year. I mentioned several times in my Blog how Royal Enfield’s improved engine design and vintage aesthetics have been making a big splash with consumers, not only in India, but in the other 2 major export markets of Europe and USA.
We’re very pleased with the growth we’ve seen in recent years. Royal Enfield has made incredible imrpovements its product design and consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere are really beginning to take notice,” commented Kevin Mahoney, President of Royal Enfield USA. Royal Enfield USA is a division of Classic Motorworks, the exclusive licensed distributor of Royal Enfield motorcycles in the United States. Royal Enfield motorcycles have been in continuous production since 1901. The marque was first established in 1893 by Enfield Manufacturing Co. of Redditch, Worcestershire, England under license from the Crown. Today, as the owner of the original brand, the $100M Royal Enfield company is headquartered in Chennai, India and operates as a division of the $1B Eicher Group. In recent years, the historic brand has seen a resurgence of interest around the world, selling over 50,000 motorcycles per year to loyal riders in 30 countries
Good news for the retro guys – Quality is a lot better now and left foot gear change
Last time in Goa I saw a whole row of about 30 white ones and wondered what they were..
the local Chief of Police came out of the shop and said “they’re all mine!!”
Always see the old war department bikes being used as winter hacks here in England
Have seen the pinstriping guy on UTube – amazing – can you add this to this clip Cyril? not got the knowhow this end (Battastinis had it on their blog)
The bikes look like old classics. They’re affordable. They’re collegiate. They have handwork in them.
Inida’s printing money with this marque. Good for everyone.
Thats a nice bike!
Allright! Surf City! Are there any beach breaks (rideable waves) along Martha Beach? Looks like it takes a direct south swell to start firing (wave after wave after wave). The beaches look wide from here.
Where’s the factory plot on this map?
India could benefit from a network of autobahns. Travel took a long time on the “chicken train”, combined w/ fatigue in 1982. Any positive travel changes since then ?
“Yes, the motorcycle!”, you say?
Der map:
http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/tamilnadu/chennai-map.htm
Relax Doods, they are “Good Fer Bikes” ! They look good from far….and they are far from good!!!!
I sent for information on their side-hack rigs. Keep one for a few years then sell it. Fun for summer – leaving it parked in the driveway as a short hop errand-jitney.
They will have to improve their quality of both product and after sales service before I ever buy another Enfield. My Electras big end failed at 11,000 miles. All I got from them was that they are very reliable and it does not happen. They were out of stock of replacement crankshafts (used up all the replacement parts for parts that do not fail) so I had a specialist company fit a bigger better one. The problem was the case hardening of the crankpin flaked off which serves as the inner run of the bearing. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the crank was miss-manufactured by having the slot for the rotor for the ignition milled in the wrong place and at the wrong depth. This makes the bike run too far advanced.
I got no help at all from Royal Enfield.
Larry – they said exactly the same to me, but mine didn’t even get to reach 10,000 miles – Allegedly the latest engines use the same crank and bigend assembly as the erlaier Electra model. I ended up with a cranky flake pin as well.
shame to hear about quality issues. if they can solve that as well as produce a new big air-cooled Interceptor they’d sell like hot cakes.