Blueprint bike
It's not often one is allowed to get too close to a prototype. They're usually tantalisingly out of reach behind ropes or on an elevated and rotating platform in the middle of a show hall; to stand over one, touch it or sit on it is a rare privilege, to start one up and ride it is pure fantasy.
So it was a mixture of excitement, trepidation and wonder I was feeling as I pulled off Gordon Hallett's driveway on board the one-of-a-kind 175cc overhead camshaft Royal Enfield – at that point I hadn't realised he hadn't ridden it himself yet...
Although you're hard-pushed to find reference to it in any of the Royal Enfield history books, the story of the 175cc OHC prototype is fairly well-known among aficionados.
It's thought the original brief, presented to the R&D team in early 1961, was for a machine designed to fall below the UK's sub-200cc threshold for low-cost insurance.
