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R. Balaji

Chennai , April 24

ROYAL Enfield's 500 cc Bullet is to be taken out of local sales over the next few months.

The official reason: Not much in demand. A dealer sells only about one or two machines a month. The company is planning to introduce upgraded versions.

Talk to Bullet enthusiasts and those in the know — reliable sources — you hear an interesting tale.

Tourists from European countries pick up a 500 cc Bullet to tour India and when they go back they take the machine with them. It is a `new vintage' at low cost whereas the export versions of the Bullet back home cost a few thousand dollars.

This gives the Bullet dealers in Britain or anywhere in the UK heartburn. They are not only losing that business but to add insult to injury, the customer approaches them to sort out the paper work to be allowed onto the road.

Mr Siddartha Lal, Chief Executive, Royal Enfield, acknowledges that this "causes some issues with distribution abroad. Royal Enfield sells more (500 cc) through exports. But (when tourists take it back) the dealers there are losing their margin, and homologation is a problem. This bugs the dealer."

However, "this is not something on top of our mind, but are trying to address the problem." While the company is discouraging local dealers from tapping into the export market through this route, there is nothing Royal Enfield can do about the second hand sales. Occasionally someone puts together a consignment of 10-15 vehicles and they are exported.

Mr Lal pointed out that the export model 500 cc, the Sixty-5, as it is known in Britain, was designed to meet the standards there. In some places it costs upwards of Rs 2 lakh. But here the 500 cc costs about a third of this price and people do find it an attractive option.

In the local market, there has been a short supply of 500 ccs but the company continues to dispatch them to the dealers. But it will consider pulling out the model over the coming months. Over the next 6-8 months, Royal Enfield is looking at introducing the 500 cc versions of the latest engines in Thunderbird and Machismo models, which it has been working on in the last year and a half.

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