The man transforming Royal Enfield
Royal Enfield’s engineering chief who previously also led development at Triumph ‘One of the things I like best is making things work well’
Meet Simon Warburton – he’s the man with a bold new plan
As a design engineer then product manager at Triumph, Simon Warburton was a driving force behind some of Hinckley’s greatest bikes. While today, as Head of Product Development at Royal Enfield, he’s fundamental to the firm’s brand new, multi-millionpound Development Centre at Bruntingthorpe and its first ‘big’ product, the twin-cylinder 650. So it’s probably a surprise that Simon’s personal taste in bikes is more European dirt machines than classic British roadsters, and that his teenage ambition was more mechanic than industry player. “I never imagined I’d be doing something like this,” he admits today. “At 14 or 15 all I wanted to do was work on bikes and went into my engineering degree because I wanted to be a mechanic. Remember, in 1984 there was no British bike industry. It just wasn’t an option.” Months after graduating and starting work on nuclear submarines in Barrow, he dropped out of engineering to ride around South America. Then, a couple of years later, he equally randomly went to Madrid. “I just fancied living in Spain and got a job teaching English. I thought I’d stay for six months but ended up there for three and a half years. It was brilliant.”
So, by the time Simon returned to the UK, he naturally thought his engineering chance had gone until, in 1996, he was encouraged to apply to Triumph. And the rest, as they say, is history.
“It sounds like false modesty but I’ve just been at the right place at the right time and not screwed up too badly…” he reflects. “I was at Triumph 18 years, nine as a design engineer and nine product planning – where you work out the sort of bike to do. But one of the things I was very jealous of was that Triumph then was pretty much fully formed. I’d been talking to some of the guys who’d been there from the start and thought: ‘That sounds really interesting, what a fantastic journey to be on.’ So, when Royal Enfield came along I thought ‘Wow, what an opportunity! The chance to set something up [a new, Britishbased RE development centre] from scratch. Also, I’d been fascinated by Royal Enfield since I was a kid and found out they were still being made. I mean, what a story!” The task seemed enormous but that was what appealed – not any sense of motorcycling patriotism.
“To be honest, the British thing isn’t my biggest motivation. I’m more of a European type person… “We started off looking at an existing building, realised it wasn’t big enough then got a blank sheet and thought ‘Right, what would an ideal development centre have?’ “One of the things I like best is making things work well. I’m not a design engineer anymore, so what I do is try to make the whole organisation work.
“At Royal Enfield, what we really want is to be the top player in the 250-750cc market globally… and we’re getting there.
“My job right now is enormously challenging because it’s a huge, huge team. I’ve got 350 people under me, both in the UK and India. We’ve design engineers working on CAD, an analysis team, test teams plus a programme management team who knit it all together and link to other sides of the business, the manufacturing side, procurement and commercial teams.
“A project can last up to four years, if it’s all new – and we’ve some of those on the go – plus you need to look even further ahead… It’s enormously challenging but very energising and it’s rewarding to be in a position of responsibility in this company. It’s exciting times. We’ve produced some really nice bikes, and there’s more to come.”