NEW PEGASUS
Royal Enfield’s latest Bullet Classic variant goes back to WWII for its inspiration
Royal Enfield launch a Ww2-inspired version of the fabulous Classic. We were there for a ride
A new model has slipped into Royal Enfield’s line-up. It’s a variation on the tried and tested Bullet Classic theme, and pays tribute to their wartime lightweight RE/WD – known as the Flying Flea because of its large-scale deployment with airborne forces. So where better to introduce a machine developed in collaboration with the Parachute Regiment than the Imperial War Museum at Duxford? Royal Enfield know how to make bikes with a classic twist. Production ran to over 800,000 last year. That’s serious. But they also know how to make the most of a good thing, and that good thing has been the constantly-evolving Bullet. The new Pegasus variant might be playing the heritage card again, but it’s leaning on a pretty amazing back story for its inspiration. During the war, 4000 of the little RE/WD 125cc lightweights – based on a civilian model – were ordered by the War Department, and the Parachute Regiment was one of the bike’s most enthusiastic proponents. Mounted in a protective steel cradle, hundreds were dropped by parachute into combat zones, carrying paratroopers into battle or carrying vital messages between units on the ground. And hundreds more were carried into battle aboard gliders, or ridden off landing craft on to the Normandy beaches on D-day. All of which explains why I’m at Duxford watching the Parachute Regiment’s elite Red Devils display team spiralling to earth at an improbably fast rate before slowing at the last moment for a perfect landing. Shortly after, the wartime Douglas Dakota DC-3 from which they’ve jumped touches down and disgorges a brace of new Pegasus 500 models, where a couple of Flying Fleas await – together with a couple of veteran soldiers from the original wartime deployments. It’s an impressive, touching tribute to a couple of the men and machines who gave so much more than that 70 years ago. The Pegasus may be another variant on the well-tried Bullet theme, but Royal Enfield have put a lot of effort into the bike. They’ve carefully researched the two colour options – Olive Drab and Service Brown – and based the markings on a wartime Flying Flea used by the 250th (Airborne) Light Company, that is now in Royal Enfield’s collection at their new UK Tech Centre. Numbers are hand-stencilled, the bike carries the Pegasus emblem (the insignia of the Parachute Regiment) on the tank, and there’s a yellow stripe on the ‘timing side’ outer engine case denoting the bike’s centre of gravity to aircraft loadmasters. The devil is in the detail. Image is vital for the new limited-edition Pegasus but it also has to perform, and I get the chance for a leisurely spin around south Cambridgeshire back lanes. The bike is a Classic 500 in new clothes and it remains the docile, friendly and thoroughly pleasant ride I’ve come to expect from the latest-generation singles. Keep the revs down and short-shift – there’s no rev-counter to keep an eye on – and the gentle, torquey nature of the fuel-injected 499cc engine is charming.