With Royal Enfield’s new all alloy-engined, unit construction, EFI fuel-injected Bullet single well-established, the old iron engine, pre-unit Bullets are arguably now…classics?
Words and photographs: Steve Wilson
Oxford Royal Enfield, and its customising arm BMCC, inhabit a reassuringly petrol-head location. It’s an industrial estate behind a farm, where in other units you keep getting glimpses of classic Mini Coopers and T-Series MGs.
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Despite the official-sounding title, the outfit is essentially two men and a shed, albeit a large, well-heated one. Bruce Maconochie held a Royal Enfield franchise in nearby Didcot until 2011, when ill health and other factors meant a downsize and diversifying into customising, where the low cost of preowned Bullets meant that he could offer customs priced for the real world.
Alan Charlton is equally involved, and bears a tattoo of the winged Royal Enfield badge on his forearm to prove it. Their customs – bobbers, 1960s to 80s-style chops, as much or as little as the customer wants – have featured in MCN as well as the custom mags, and are all “built to be ridden, not just to look good parked up.” They walk it like they talk it, having successfully undertaken LE-JOG on a pair of Bullet Elektra X models, the alloy-engined predecessor to the 2008-on EFI unit singles. The trip, featured in local news and on TV, raised £14,000 for their chosen charity.
Read more in the March issue of TCM – out now!
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