Hitchcocks Forum

An old one: Usual complaint is people grumbling it's not British but Indian. But several people recently commented on how nice it is to see proper British!!
I haven't done anything to make mine look more British... so what on earth do you say? They're only trying to be interested!!??!! Big stickers with MADE IN INDIA???

get this chris ,4 enfields at a set of traffic lights ,bloke walking down pavement says to his mrs,thats an english 1 pointing at an efi combination with a b,reg 64 plate on black an silver plate next to it was an efi same colour same bike except for no sidecar yellow & black plate,the other 3 bikes are indian he proclaimed! knowledge is power! atb paul.

It's an odd problem when you think those making an opinion (probably) don't even own a British (or other) bike! And further I wonder what nationality their car is?

Boundaries are blurring everywhere - is a Jaguar really a Jag when owned by an Indian company, is a Land Rover a Land Rover, same reason, is a Mini a Mini owned by BMW, is a Honda a Honda built in UK, Peugeot, Nissan, Samsung....the list is endless. I say I have a Royal Enfield designed in Britain in the '50's, but still made in India, it still looks the part, and definitely feels the part, and that's good enough for me!

Does it matter?.... I thought not until I saw a post a while back about a sort of apartheid beeing considered by REOC...... Had intended joining until I read that...... My Bullet 500 was made in Madras & I make no attempt to pretend otherwise

The unique thing about Enfields is that they are the only direct decendant of the British bike industry. A good analogy is the dwarf wooly mammoths on Wrangle Island north of Siberia. They survived in a unique environment 7000 years after the rest of the worlds population had gone extinct.

If people admire them then what does it matter if they cannot tell their Madras from their Redditch? Just acknowledge them with a smile, they will enjoy having impressed you so you will have brought some pleasure to their otherwise dull existence.

Just as Chris Tindal mentioned, the Bullet is kind of a motorcycle-marsupial. The development, long ago in the iron age, was done in Britain but the former technology carrier did survive for several reasons whereelse, till the very day. Is it British? Of course! Is it Indian? Why certainly!
Today there is nothing like "made in..." anymore.
Idea: British
Design: British
Engine: Indian
Injection: Japanese
Kat: German
Starter: Japanese
Tyres: British
Hydrolifters: USA
Beer afterwards: Hopefully Bavarian
I´m sure we´ll find something Chinese aswell...pick up wich you like most
Best regards
Maturin

the chinese bit is obvious - its the aluminium tray containing the sweet and sour pork balls that you scoff whilst waiting for the RAC recovery truck.