1968 Royal Enfield Interceptor
(Page 2 of 4)
May/June 2008
Photos and Story By Robert Smith
Jim’s Interceptor is a 1968 Mk1A, built close to the end of a development line that started long before, in 1949.
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Twins it is
It’s a common misconception that Royal Enfield made guns as well as motorcycles, including the Lee-Enfield rifle. It’s a reasonable assumption, given the company’s “made like a gun” slogan.
Many also suppose the company earned its regal prefix by supplying cycles to sovereigns. Neither is correct — though they make for a good story. Royal Enfield got its trademark through good old-fashioned snake-oil salesmanship, and the salesman in question was one Albert Eadie. In 1890, he purchased George Townsend and Co., near Redditch, Worcestershire, in England’s “Black Country.”
Originally a manufacturer of sewing needles, Townsend had turned to making bicycle parts and supplanted its income with sub-contract work, including making gun parts for the Royal Ordnance Factory in Enfield, Middlesex. Eadie appropriated “Royal” and “Enfield” to create the company’s brand name.
Royal Enfield created its first powered vehicles in 1896, but made its name with innovative motorcycles during the Teens and Twenties. It was among the first to develop a fully-circulating automatic oiling system using a separate tank for engine oil. During the depression, Enfield survived by selling inexpensive commuter machines, including a sturdy 225cc two-stroke, and side-valve V-twins for sidecar use. And through WWII, the company’s model C 350cc side-valve single fought alongside better-known bikes from Norton and BSA.
But perhaps the model most often identified with the company is the Bullet. Introduced in 1948, the Bullet, little changed, is still built today in Chennai, India — a production run of 60 years!
Royal Enfield lagged behind Triumph and BSA in building parallel twins, introducing their first “500 Twin” in 1949, the same year Norton’s 500cc Dominator twin hit the scene. Like the single-cylinder Bullet, the dry-sump twin’s oil supply was held in a “tank” cast into the engine behind the crankcase. Separate iron cylinders were spigoted into the crankcase, while two chain-driven camshafts mounted high in the engine operated overhead valves via short, light, alloy pushrods.
When BSA and Triumph both introduced 650cc twins in 1949, Enfield designer Tony Wilson-Jones saw an opportunity to combine the Bullet’s 70mm x 90mm dimensions with the 500 twin’s crankcase, creating the 36hp, 693cc Meteor of 1953. The Meteor begat the 40hp Super Meteor and eventually the 51hp Constellation of 1958. They were Britain’s biggest parallel twins until the AMC and Norton 750s of 1962.
With parallel twins, more capacity usually means more vibration. Uniquely in the British motorcycle industry, Enfield’s big twin crankshafts were dynamically balanced at the factory, making them easily the smoothest big twins of the era. It helped that the one-piece crankshaft weighed close to 40 pounds and ran in two main bearings the size of hockey pucks!