India’s iconic motorcycle manufacturer, Royal Enfield is on a record roll. The latest from this is the acquisition of legendary British chassis maker, Harris Performance. This is an outright purchase with the company acquiring all assets, employees, trade names, technical know-how and intellectual property of Harris Performance Products Ltd.
Harris Performance has been established over 40 years ago by Steve and Lester Harris along with Stephen Bayford. The company has been a leader in design and production of high performance bike chassis and components.
Royal Enfield will be helped by the Harris Performance team on a new generation of products and platforms. It is already revealed that Royal Enfield is working on three new product launches with two new engine platforms for 2016. Upcoming launches from Royal Enfield include the Himalayan, an adventure bike with a new 410cc engine while other two models will sport 750cc parallel twin engine.
Harris Performance has been associated with Royal Enfield in the past, having designed the frame for its Continental GT Café Racer.
Apart from Harris Performance, the last few months have seen Royal Enfield in the process of hiring many new experts from the industry. To help Royal Enfield expand its product range and to aid in the setting up of anew Leicester based engineering center, Royal Enfield has taken on Triumph’s former Project Manager, Simon Warburton. Simon will be the new Head of Product Planning and Strategy at Royal Enfield.
Royal Enfield Continental GT in GoaApart from this, Ducati 999 maker, Pierre Terblanche is the company’s new Design Chief. Royal Enfield has also recruited Mark Wells and Ian Wride of Xenophya Design who were instrumental in design and development of Triumph Tiger Sport, Tiger Explorer and Daytona 675, while Xenophya also contributed to styling of Royal Enfield Continental GT and Bullet Classic.
