Hitchcocks Forum

3 unassembled Carberry motors sitting in a shed gathering dust

WHY ??

Why? Wrong motor, wrong customer, wrong price, wrong place. Did I leave anything out? Sorry to be brutal, but only a handful of folk worldwide want an Enfield Harley clone. Diesel conversions easily outnumber them!
REgards, Mark

and the diesel upgrade is quite sensible although i,m biased the enfield v twin got lost in the 1930,s although i think that was a shame especially as its a sweeter motor than a parallel twin just my thoughts atb paul.

Hi Mark, I'd say you are close to the mark but the biggest problem was the need to alter the backbone of the frame, just made it too hard

Norm I think that's also a major consideration. The reason that some special builders have chosen the Enfield as a basis is that it's cheap and adaptable, hence the popularity of Diesel conversions using a relatively cheap engine: the finished result won't cost too much and nothing is really wasted. All that goes out of the window with an expensive engine transplant and having to do major frame adaptation just makes it worse, result: cheap and basic donor bike is now just as cheap in conception but very expensive in execution. Moral as I see it is if you want a v-twin, buy one built for the purpose. And no, I'm not against special building, I've done it myself but the sum of these parts was never going to be worth it.
REgards, Mark

hey Grunda! ... Is this what you mean? ..... http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f340/ ... 2c2eb6.jpg .......... was at a recent camp attended by the Flash & a Box

Mark, there was meeting to discuss what could be done and there was an idea of fitting them into new Dominator frames to accept the forward barrel, but my arguement against this is once this is done what is it? It now has little appeal to Enfield followers because it is just a "V"twin in a Norton type frame so there is no real heritage to it, it has lost its roots.Not sure where we can go from here

Derek Pickard summed up the Carberry situation very well in The Royal Enfield magazine. I've always liked the idea of the Diesel Enfield but some of them I've ridden have been too rough and slow to live with. The Hatz was the best ride for me. A twin diesel would make some sense...great for sidecar fans.

Paul,
I discussed the situation with Derek a couple of years before the first cases were poured and he predicted exactly how it ended up