Future Shotgun
This is an almost standard cruiser. Really. Royal Enfield Shotgun 650 The company’s design chief explains how they did it
Netflix’s new film The Kitchen won’t be troubling the Oscars’ judges but never mind that; just look at the motorcycles. The gritty sci-fi world – filmed mostly in London – is littered with bikes, and the star of the show is this futuristic Royal Enfield Shotgun 650.
‘Almost everything is stock,’ Enfield’s head of design Adrian Sellers tells Bike. ‘The forks, tank, main frame, wheels, engine… it’s all standard. We just added rapid prototype covers to restyle it without fundamentally changing the mechanical bits – that would have increased the risk of it breaking down on set, which you really don’t want.’ Essentially, it’s a Shotgun with the world’s cleverest body kit. The only mechanical surgery was done to the rear, where a new steel subframe lifts the tail higher than the standard bike’s. ‘The advantage of using the Shotgun was that it’s got a bolt-off subframe,’ says Adrian. ‘It let us quickly fabricate a new one and restyle the back end without having to do anything major.’
The entire section from the tank through to the tail is one huge piece of 3D-printed reinforced nylon. Parts like the 3D-printed wheel covers simply clip on over the standard items. ‘We knew the bikes [three were made] were going to get used a lot on set, so we had to make sure the covers were durable, which they were,’ says Adrian. ‘There was actually a scene – unfortunately cut from the final edit – where one of the characters crashes the bike. The stunt man slung it down the road and it survived really well – the parts didn’t all pop off, which we were a bit worried about. It just got a bit scraped and was back in action for the rest of the shoot that day. That was cool.’ Another factor affecting the decision to leave most of the bike alone was time; Adrian and his team had just three months from start to finish.
‘We went through the process we normally do for a production bike,’ he says. ‘We got a concept brief together in conjunction with the production team who were building this world, a sci-fi dystopian future. Then we came up with a brief and kicked it out to our teams for sketching. We have studios in both the UK and India – in Chennai – and so everybody got their hands on it. ‘Ultimately it came down to three sketches [two from the UK, one from India] that all had elements we liked, so we pieced them together.’ The design then went straight to CAD (computer-aided design) rather than clay because of the time pressure.
‘It made a lot of sense because [on CAD] it was very easy to see where the clearances were, what the material thicknesses needed to be and how tight we could suck the surfaces around the bike.’ Adrian delivered the bikes in pristine condition, and the first thing the film crew did was age them.
‘There was a guy on set whose job was to make things look worn. He had a cart full of sprays, each one giving the look of a different kind of dirt or corrosion. It was incredibly quick and suddenly you’ve got a bike that looks like it’s been sitting outside for 15 years.’
So, will Kitchen body kits be available from Enfield any time soon? ‘It’s not feasible because the second you change anything on a production bike you have to go back through the testing process, which is long and expensive. So I don’t think we’ll see an official kit from Royal Enfield. But the whole point is showing a vision of the future. Give us 30 years and you may be getting one…’
SHOCKS
From Hagon. Adrian and his team thought the old-school covered look would actually make them look more futuristic than having exposed springs.
FRONT END
All standard. Because Enfield had the CAD data for the Shotgun, the wheel and fork covers could be designed to simply clip on. A few bolts stopped them popping off during stunts.
AIR INTAKE
The silver canister is a dummy, though of course the airbox is actually underneath there. The three electric cables are another movie confection – they don’t do anything.
TANK TO TAIL
This is a one-piece 3D-printed cover that slots over the largely standard bike. Enfield had to outsource the printing because of its size.
‘It’s a vision of the future – you may be able to get one in 30 years’