PIX: Royal Enfield to make 1000cc monsters?

As Royal Enfield plans expanding its plant capacity, rumours of 750cc and 1000cc machines have been flying thick and fast.

In line with expanding production, Royal Enfield has announced the setup of its new plant once again in Chennai. In response to the huge demand in domestic as well as international markets, the new plant will nearly double the production to 1,50,000 units annually.

The 50-acre plant, which is slated for the 2013, will demand an investment of Rs 350 crore, spread over the next five years. The facility will be equipped to produce the entire range of the company and will be backed by the proximity of vendors and supply chain in the area.

In light of the growing ecological concerns, the factory will be installed with an effective auto-eco system at SIPCOT Industrial Growth Centre, Oragadam.

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At the Auto Expo 2010, we saw the red Cafe Racer exhibit at the RE stall. If that was a small step towards bigger and faster REs, there are rumours that the once-British company is in the conceptualisation stage of a twin-cylinder 750cc and 1000cc bikes.

Royal Enfield has been criticised in the past for showing dilatory R&D progress. But of late, there have been tremendous leaps of technological developments in the Chennai-based company.

The twin-spark engines, Fuel injection, Unit Construction Engine are some of the examples of this exemplary development phenomenon. But something which has been common to all these technologies is the volume of the engine which has been the same sane 500cc.

And now, the time has come for RE to add more volume to the 350cc and 500cc engines. Though the V-twins are the most-sought after in the West, RE could go with the parallel-twin configuration. Parallel twins are not new to the Indian roads with the legendary RD350 and the Yezdi 350 having sported a similar engine configuration 25 years back.

It will be interesting to note how the litre bike (1000cc) model fares in a litre-bike shoot-out. Also if launched, RE will be the first Indian motorcycle manufacturer to sell 1000cc bikes.

While the big numbers do count, the versatility of a multi-fuel vehicle (MFV) can never be counted out. A quintessential tourer should be good to run through some of the unexplored paths for ages together. And this is where the ability of a MFV to run in different fuels counts a lot.

Also with the petrol prices soaring high, people are tempted to use cheaper alternatives like kerosene and diesel. By having an engine which can run on any of the above, the customers are given a great deal of flexibility. We haven't seen much of multi-fuel motorcycles in India and hence, this is an extraordinary opportunity for RE to cash in.

We are sure that the MFV, if launched, will accelerate the RE sales to an enormous extent and the manufacturer might cross the 1 lakh units a fiscal mark quite comfortably!