Hitchcocks Forum

I have recently bought a 1959 350 clipper in bright blue,does anybody know if these bikes were available new in blue as I can't find another one on Google.
If not how would I find the original colour.

This should answer your question:-

https://royalenfield.com/redditch/blog/ ... colourways

In the 1950s, the Royal Enfield factory experimented with many colours on their motorcycles, some subtle, others bold. In the later part of the decade, three distinctive tones of green, red and blue appeared on the Crusader, Clipper, Bullet and Meteor Minor models.

I can't find any reference in the various sources to the Clipper in Blue. The link Papa gives is to the Indian company and to be honest, they know very little about the Redditch company and are often wrong on details. I have found that the Clipper was Maroon in 1957, Black in 1958, Cherry Red in 1959, 60 and 61, and Burgundy/Cream in 62 which seems to be the last year for the Bullet based Clipper. Enfield would do special colours to order but this is usually shown in the Despatch Records if you get the machine dated. And I can't see why a customer would waste money on special paint when the Clipper was a budget model but who knows!

REgards, Mark

There are 2 350 Clippers in my town that are original and have never been restored. One is ridable and the other one is in storage. One is green in colour and the other one is a kind of metallic blue. The blue is quiet a bright colour with a sort of silver to it. It is not overdone like modern paint jobs are just a very light silver to the blue. I think that some of the Royal Enfield twins were this colour blue as well.

Peacock Blue?

Well there you go! I stand corrected. I've seen a few Bullet/Clippers, some had original paint which was the Cherry Red colour but none of them was in "book" condition. They all had some modification from "standard" whatever that was, usually an improved front brake (7" instead of 6") and also the full width rear hub and brake rather than the single side. The other Clipper identifier was a cast iron cylinder head and this has usually been changed on the ones I've seen for an alloy Bullet one. I like the look of the Clippers with unpolished cases and simple specification but they rarely turn up. The 250 Crusader version is even more rare. Binary, I'm interested in the ones you describe, have you or can you get any pictures?

REgards, Mark

Here's my red 59 clipper

https://ibb.co/k2drMa

Try again :