Hitchcocks Forum

I'm in India at the moment. Been to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Nearly every bike is a home produced Honda knock-off branded Hero. There were a few Enfield's in Delphi but hardly any elsewhere. Most of the ones Ive see are new EFI models. It seems Enfield's cost twice as much as the Hero's. So where have all the old Bullets gone? Perhaps I'm in the wrong part of the country. They don't scrap anything here until it's completely worn out.
Incidental there are still thousands of old Lister stationary engines still in use for various jobs and lots of ancient Vespas.

Interesting, thought there'd be loads of ancient 350 Bullets everywhere. Lambrettas were also made in India up to the 90's.

Don't be surprised if those wily Japanese don't have them stashed away. They bought up all the Ducati singles back in the 70's/80's and if you want a nice one now thats the only place to go. Could be as well they've had to go through one too many monsoon seasons and have just disolved away.

I've now found out that what I thought were old Lister stationary engines are an Indian copy - still available - and are used for many purposes, water pumps, compressors etc. We saw a lot of small tractors today with these "stationary" engines mounted on the chassis as motive power. They also use these as a power source for threshing machines by putting a belt on the flywheel (threshing millet at the moment) There seem to be two main types, single and double flywheel. Exactly the same configuration as Listers. The record for the number of people spotted on one bike is now 5 (but two were small children)

Chris, not seen any Lambrettas.

Think some of the motorized rickshaws may be Lambrettas.

Hi Pete,
Sad to hear. When I was in India in 97 Bullets were everywhere. It was great. My first brush with 'British' iron. Best time of my life so far .Plenty of Vespas and the Ambassador taxis too. Very few Chinese bikes or perhaps romantic memory has coloured my recollection! Enjoy your stay. K

Didn't India buy up the old Vespa tooling and call the scooters Baja Cheetaks? I do know that they did buy up some of the Zundapp tooling and call the bikes Enfield Explorers. Or was that Kriedler?

Whilst Chennai is building 100,000 bikes a year and is the world's largest producer of mid range bikes - or at least that is their ambition - I suspect the answer is that the local market cant afford the prices and more importantly, the main pitch is to the export markets. It is worth a good dig around the official Enfield website to get a feel for their business strategy. Various interviews with the top man point to a clear vision to be the market leader in the mid segment ie around 500cc. It is a segment Triumph should be in and thus far has wholly failed to see that opportunity - ie a really good 500cc single with British heritage.

Yes, the main sales pitch of Eicher probably is aimed at export as Sofiaspin states, because present day India does have a massive middle class with the spending power to purchase Enfields. Or perhaps they are hanging onto their cash until the Harleys become available in a few days time.