BULLET HISTORY

  Some things never change... Wealthy indian status symbol and hippy icon, the Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike has ruled India's highways for five decades thanks to a masterful development strategy of ... well, non-developement.

  Some modifications have been made, but the 350cc motorbikes rolling of the production line in Chennai today could be reasonably described as brand-new, 50-year-old classics. Some 25 000 bikes are churned out annually in the Tiruvottiyur plant, which still uses many of the machine tools and dies from the original plant in Britain.

  The grand-daddy of the present-day "Bullet" was produced at the Royal Enfield Factory at Redditch, England in 1931. The 350cc version was released in 1949. In 1970, the Brithish company folded - one of the many victims of the japanese invasion - but the "Bullet" lived on.

  The Army in newly independent India had needed an all-purpose motorbike that could cope equally with the deserts of Rajasthan and the mountain trails of the Himalayas. Eventually they lumped for the "Bullet", and their subsequent orders were so huge that an Enfield India factory was set up in Chennai in 1954 to meet the demand.

  When the parent company at Redditch folded, the Chennai plant kept right on going and still turns out single-cylinder "Bullets". that are remarkably similar to the models of 50 years ago...

1955 model...

1999 model...