Old School Cool

Where does the charm of the classic motorcycle come from? We introduce the Royal Enfield Classic 350 to the Jawa and Benelli Imperiale to find out

- Aatish Mishra & Abhishek Wairagade

THE SUCCESS OF THE CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE is interesting. Think about it — you don’t see people walking around with pagers because it makes them nostalgic, everyone’s using the smartest phone they can afford. Most photographers don’t use film any more, and the ones that do are either hipsters or septuagenarians. Heck, if you made me watch Game of Thrones on tube television, I would have set fire to the thing and escaped like Daenerys did to the Khals. Why is it then, that bikes that look like they’re straight outta the British Motor Museum sell like hot cakes?

The answer to that question is simple. While good marketing has a lot to do with it, how we are wired as human beings has played its part. I could wax eloquent about how motorcycles are deeply personal machines and all that, but it’s far more primal. Riding a motorcycle pumps your bloodstream with adrenaline, and gives your brain an overload of serotonin. It gets you hooked. It’s this heady combination that makes you fall in love with these machines, and form bonds with them. Ever seen someone bestow a name on their iPhone? I didn’t think so. Combine this with a story that tugs at your heartstrings, and you’re sitting on a proverbial gold mine.

In my opinion, Royal Enfield has figured this out better than anybody else; better even than Harley-Davidson. The company nearly shut shop in the year 2000, but it has managed to turn things around, and how. Royal Enfield tweaked its motorcycles, keeping them true to the original, but with more reliability and usability. More importantly though, they sold a great story, and these motorcycles became pieces of rolling nostalgia.