Royal Enfield’s keen to promote the living daylights out of its recently rebooted Classic 350, including a series of video tech tips for its Indian customers, and the “origin story” video we get above.
Although Royal Enfield is building the Classic 350 in India, it’s leveraging its UK-based R&D centres to make this bike. It makes sense—Royal Enfield has a long history in the UK (the brand was founded there, and the current Indian company is a spin-off). To shore up that connect, Royal Enfield spent considerable money hiring UK-based designers, and even made a deal to get Harris Performance on the payroll. The legendary aftermarket chassis builders are now tied closely to Royal Enfield, and the company’s vast experience should prove a major long-term benefit.
You can already see the changes, with this new bike now focused on comfort, with a modern counterbalancer instead of the old rattletrap design that typified the Classic line in previous years. The new Classic 350 will have electronic fuel injection, Royal Enfield’s proprietary GPS module (optional) and almost certainly a dual-channel ABS system.
It needs those features to stay competitive in the 2020s, and barely re-warming the old ’60s design wasn’t going to cut it for Royal Enfield any longer anyway, even if the old carbureted Classic 350 had been able to sneak through emissions regulations.
However, Indian riders wanted a machine that looked like the old bike, even if it was much-improved, and that’s what the styling team did.
Royal Enfield hasn’t listed a Canadian price yet, but says the Classic 350 should be at North American dealerships sometime during the 2022 riding season.
Anyone know the differences between the latest Meteor 350 from RE and the new Classic 350? They appear to be about the same with different styling. I’ve yet to see any sort of promos on the Meteor 350 yet