Spitfire ready for take-off
Launching a new bike is a hit and miss affair: will people like it? Will it hit a nerve? Will riders buy it? CCM believe they’re onto a winner
FORMED BACK IN 1971 after keen amateur scrambler Alan Clews built himself a Bsa-powered racer, Lancashire-based CCM won British Motocross championships in the mid-1970s, and then built a solid reputation for producing lightweight trailies. Still British, still controlled by the Clews family and still focused on designing and building cutting edge performance machines, CCM are on the edge of something new. The limited production, hand-made and super-cool Spitfire is their new baby. ‘Since we launched the Spitfire 600 back in February, that bike and the spin-off models have created so much interest we’ve almost doubled the size of our workforce,’ head of customer experience John Drogan explains. ‘In fact, 12 months ago the Spitfire was little more than a drawing on the back of a fag packet. Chief designer Chris Ratcliffe turned it from rough sketch to reality in a couple of months. ‘We expected to build and sell 20 Spitfires per month, but ended up with orders for all 150 almost straight away. To be honest, we could have sold more nd than double, but we’d made a promise to buyers that the Spitfire would remain a limited edition. From that we’ve created a whole range; first the Scrambler, then the Café Racer, and now the Flat Tracker.’ John explains CCM in one simple sentence when he says, ‘we’re a company run by enthusiasts, not accountants.’ That’s immediately clear when you cast an eye over the Spitfire’s hand-tig-welded chassis, sculpted tank and myriad high-end components. This is bespoke bike building. At the heart of their hand-built approach is CCM’S one-to-one relationship with customers. ‘They’re not just buying a bike,’ says John. ‘They’re buying the whole CCM experience – engineering excellence, heritage, passion, the lot. That spirit is the beating heart of CCM.