Old Midland marque is going places once more
Bollywood stars make Royal Enfield motorbikes cool again
IT’S an iconic motorbike brand that hails from the Midlands of yesteryear. But the Royal Enfield brand is very much still on the road and is now cool again after a revival ignited by the rich and famous in India.
A new generation of fans are being attracted to the brand which was originally designed and made in the Redditch, Worcestershire, until the 1960s.
Now barely a day goes by without chic photos of a Royal Enfield bike being posted on Instagram by Bollywood’s most famous, some of whom even tag in Redditch.
Fans in the acting community include Amit Sadh, John Abrahim, Jackie Shroff, Gul Panag and Sonakshi Sinha in India, along with Brad Pitt in Hollywood.
Cricketers, including Indian Premier League and international player Sanju Samson, are also getting in on the act.
The motorbike is even the centre of a recent Hindi language film called Dug Dug – named after the thumping sound of a Royal Enfield motorcycle engine.
Enfield Cycle Company’s history as a giant in motorcycle design will always be synonymous with Redditch, where it all began in 1901. Only one building remains of the Redditch factory, which closed in 1967.
With a motto of ‘Made like a gun’, it is among the oldest motorcycle brands in the world still in production and the Royal Enfield Bullet is billed as ‘the longest-lived motorcycle design in history’.
Actor Sinha recently posed on Instagram with a yellow Royal Enfield bike as part of her fashion accessory.
Other stars with a crush on the Royal Enfields include Shahid Kapoor, who has been seen riding an Old Bullet, and Varun Dhawan.
And film promotions often use the motorbike, including when Katrina Kaif and Hrithik Roshan were doing
photo calls for their film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
Enfield of India now produces the machines in Chennai, with bikes a popular way to travel in the country.
Redditch’s Enfield business partnered up with India in 1955, sending components there for production.
But by 1962, all the machines were
being made and put together in India and the Worcestershire factory closed, followed by a Bradford-onAvon plant in Wiltshire in 1970.
The former Redditch manufacturing site has now been redeveloped into Royal Enfield Business Park, off Hewell Road, with warehouse units.
But the Indian company still credits
Enfield’s roots and in 2017 unveiled a new bike called the Classic 350 Redditch.
In another homage to the Enfield, the new Hindi film Dug Dug, directed by Ritwik Pareek, is a tale surrounding mysterious events in the wake of a freak motorcycle accident, which sows the seeds of a new religion.