Guwahati News Desk: The leading touring two wheeler manufacturing brand Royal Enfield global leader in the middleweight motorcycle segment (250cc – 750cc) opened its showcase offering at EICMA 2021 today with the unveil of the Royal Enfield SG650 Concept motorcycle marking another chapter in the brand’s 120 year old journey of creative expression and conceptual development.
The SG650 Concept is the result of a challenge set to Royal Enfield’s Industrial Design Team by Mark Wells, Chief of Design. At its core, the message underpinning the concept build was about celebrating ‘transition’. The aim, through this challenge, was for the Royal Enfield team to embark on a new creative journey with the SG650 Concept; starting from within Royal Enfield’s classic design sensibilities and then pushing into a whole new era of what the Royal Enfield’s of the future could look like.
Says Mark Wells, “We are a company in transition so long a representation of the analog age and now developing new products that keep that same pure soul yet are fully integrated into the digital present. To celebrate this, we wanted to develop a project that really gave our design team an opportunity to stretch themselves creatively. RE build with a unique concept motorcycle that pays homage to Royal Enfield’s rich history of custom motorcycles, but one that wasn’t encumbered by the past. A neo-retro interpretation that pushes the boundaries of what a Royal Enfield motorcycle could look like, but at its core still celebrates that iconic Royal Enfield DNA.
The advances of today are often inspired by the imaginations of the past the mobile phone, the smart watch or even space travel. That desire to look forward with optimism and imagine the possibilities is fundamental to the progression of our culture. And so we started this concept with a context rather than a question imagining a world in the not so distant future and our brand’s place in it. A cyber, neon saturated, urban jungle took shape where old meets new in a tangle of concrete, metal, bright lights and shadowy streets, where the analog and the digital intertwine and blend setting that felt both familiar and alien to us, and in doing so foster an environment that would force us to think differently about how we approached the aesthetics of a Royal Enfield motorcycle.
The key concept of transition is conveyed throughout the motorcycle; from the choice of aesthetic finishes, to the materials that we used. From the heritageinspired polished aluminium front end, flowing into the futuristic, digital graphic on the tank – this was about bringing the old and the new together and resulting in something timeless.
There are some really special elements to this motorcycle that are a first for a Royal Enfield concept many of the component parts have been individually, one-off fabricated or designed exclusively for this motorcycle. The tank has been CNC billet machined from a solid block of aluminium, as have the wheel rims with integrated ABS, bespoke designed brake calipers, and dual front brake disks. The upside down forks, integrated aluminium top yoke/nacelle unit and low rise extra wider bars with all aluminium switch cubes all add elements of originality and design progression to the concept while the twin rear shocks, mounted to the classic chassis loop, hand stitched black leather floating solo seat are a clear nod to our past. Graphically, the black out 650 Twin engine and exhaust system compliment our imagined near future, while the polished aluminum forms transitioning with a “digital transformation” graphic across the motorcycle speak to the progression of the brand. We’re delighted with the end result and truly believe this brings something completely new, in our 120th anniversary year, to the ever developing story of Royal Enfield.”