Indian motorcycle brands getting involved with Western companies for R&D isn’t anything new, in fact the entire Erik Buell Racing story seems to center around that very issue.
So, it shouldn’t shock anyone to hear that the iconic Royal Enfield motorcycle brand has acquired famed British performance house Harris Performance.
“Royal Enfield is working on its new generation of products and platforms; to have the Harris Performance team dedicatedly working with us will clearly enhance our engineering and product design capabilities,” said Siddhartha Lal, CEO Royal Enfield.
This acquisition comes after Royal Enfield and Harris Performance teamed up on making the Continental GT — Royal Enfield’s sporty café racer.
Harris Performance of course is a famed tuning and engineering outfit from the UK, which holds the distinction of being the the only manufacturer from the UK to have been officially commissioned by Yamaha and Suzuki to design, develop and manufacture race bikes for the Grand Prix and World Superbike Championships.
Meanwhile, Royal Enfield, like many Indian brands, has been learning 21st century motorcycle design through acquisition, with Royal Enfield already retaining the services of Pierre Terblanche and Xenophya Design’s Mark Wells and Ian Wride.
The Indian company is establishing an engineering center in Leicester, where presumably all the pieces to this puzzle will come together, and be leveraged for Royal Enfield’s push into the European and North American markets.
Don’t look know, but the dawn of the Indian motorcycle manufacturer in Western society is upon us.
Source: Economic Times
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