DESIGN TRENDS
‘Like many enthusiasts, I have waited a long time for the next generation of Royal Enfield motorcycles. The Interceptor could have been a milestone product, while still ticking all the boxes. Instead, the utter predictability of the design is a huge disap
It has been a while since i deliberately kicked a hornets’ nest. For some time now, I have tried, and to an extent succeeded, to behave myself and not make waves. As someone whose job it is to see the flaws in everything and resolve them, I know I’m not an easy bloke to be around — as two successive Mrs Kerrs will no doubt testify.
When ex-Ducati design chief Pierre Terblanche quit Royal Enfield a while back, it was paradoxically both a surprise and a given. Shortly before that, he had resigned from Confederate after only a year with the extrovert Alabama constructor — a position for which I’d invested considerable time, writing testimonials and supplying references to help him overcome the Green Card barrier that afflicts all would-be immigrants to the US. Prior to that, he had spent an even shorter spell at the helm of Norton, which prompted me to suggest he might be going for the ‘World’s Longest CV Award’. Terblanche failed to see the funny side and promptly unfriended me — and not just on Facebook. But that’s all water under the Bridgestones now. The latest drama involves the product he no doubt helped kick off at Royal Enfield: the Interceptor 650.
My introduction to the Interceptor was via LinkedIn when an ex-colleague, now at Royal Enfield, published a post stating how the latest computer technology had helped the company achieve new design heights. I looked from his comment to the photo, and back to the comment... and back to the photo. What was he talking about? Here was the most predictable piece of design I’d seen in years, yet everyone was acting as if it was all done by Indians in the immediate post-colonial times. That would truly have been worthy of applause, but for the new UK R&D Centre, manned by 240 mostly-Europeans, it seemed to fall short by a wide margin. It made you wonder what the other 239 were doing the whole time.
Don’t get me wrong. From a marketing viewpoint, the new Enfield twins are absolutely what the company needs to expand. And without moving outside the established brand, it’s all done with little or no risk. The domestic market is intensely patriotic, and with an expanding middle class, huge sales of a new all-metal icon from the most authentic of Indian manufacturers are guaranteed. The fact that it has been entirely designed and developed in the UK is unlikely to dilute the enthusiasm. And why should it? It didn’t put anyone off the original Bullet. The title ‘Interceptor’, while authentic to Enfield UK’s last production model, and a twin at that, has since been taken for Honda’s US model VF750/800F (along with a British grand touring car in the 1960s), so the legal implications of that might be interesting too.
In India, the new twins will be seen as high-performance superbikes while, conversely, as unintimidating entry-level midsize models in developed markets, where 160 km/h performance has been commonplace for decades. Whatever their stance, everyone will love it. So, my describing it as “a poor copy of a 20-year-old Triumph” may have been an unfair taunt, but it certainly got the intended reactions from the design team. As tempers rose in the online exchange, what started as investigative journalism ended as pure sport. All the same, I’d be curious to know how the chaps at Triumph perceive it.
Looking back over 33 years in the motorcycle business, the opportunity to make real advances in design seems to have declined exponentially over that period. Sure, in the early 1980s, we were all struggling to understand the rules of what a modern motorcycle should be, and there were plenty of false directions before everything settled down. Looking back, the freedom, along with the responsibility to get it right, were terrifying. Over the years, those rules have become so well established that the challenge is now to break away from them.
Some companies take on that challenge. They are driven to improve the product and advance the industry, with a longerterm outlook than just instant profit. I have acknowledged before that Honda and BMW lead the way in terms of innovative technology and styling, both helped no doubt by the technical and financial might of their automotive divisions. Even so, they take risks and accept a certain percentage of failure as an inevitable by-product.
Even Yamaha, historically famous for their wise fiscal policy of deliberately coming second to Honda, have introduced plenty of innovative products. The new three-wheeled Niken, which appeared in prototype form at the 2015 Milan EICMA, represents a huge leap of faith that the concept will appeal to supersport customers. Urban scooter riders, who have already embraced three-wheelers like Yamaha’s Tricity or the Piaggio MP3, are an entirely different species.
Smaller companies like KTM and Husqvarna have also been pushing the envelope within their budget limits, with fresh new designs that challenge our preconceptions and move the industry forwards. Advances are still being made, but not every manufacturer is equal in this regard. Many companies, especially in the East Asian markets, want short-term rewards with zero risk, which is hardly challenging creatively.
In purely financial terms, that logic makes perfect sense. But the policy exploits the industry, rather than contributing to it. We’ve seen recently how every manufacturer in China can turn out café racers and scramblers with minimal effort, tacking clipons and exhaust-wrap on to low-tech commuter bikes to create instant personality. Yes, it looks cool, but nostalgia is a finite market that draws from past glories, and exhibits zero vision. If a company can only achieve the same result as any owner after a day in their garage with a few rudimentary tools, and parts delivered via an accessory catalogue, then it doesn’t bode well for the future of motorcycling. Fortunately, the few visionaries have given the others a path to follow. Eventually.
Enfield’s biggest success story has been the production leap from a quoted 32,000 units in 2006 to a projected 900,000 in 2018. Even that figure lies well behind Hero’s target of 10 million units, although the Enfield’s higher price tag points to higher profitability per unit. In the short term, Enfield’s market is very clearly defined; so, from a marketing viewpoint, it would be an unnecessary venture into the unknown for them to deviate too far from their own success story at this point.
In sales terms, I’m sure the company has hit the nail on the head with the 650. The visual balance is better than its predecessor’s (although leaving the rear sub-frame visible behind the seat hump on the café racer is still an eyesore, guys), and it will no doubt find a ready market. The wealthy company executives are assured to become even wealthier as a result. But a design marvel it isn’t. Instead of beating their chests, the UK development team needs to simply take the money and slip quietly out of the back door.
Like many enthusiasts, I have waited a long time for the next generation of Royal Enfield motorcycles. This could have been a milestone product, while still ticking all the boxes. Instead, the utter predictability of the design is a huge disappointment. If, as I wrote earlier, the Continental GT dragged Enfield screaming into the 1960s, the Interceptor seems to have catapulted them into the ’70s. That’s probably enough for the Indian market, which will make huge allowances for a traditional domestic motorcycle. But to anyone with vision, and an understanding of the international motorcycle industry, it could have been so much more.
Here was the most predictable piece of design I’d seen in years, yet everyone was acting as if it was all done by Indians in the immediate post-colonial times