DIGGING UP GOLD
Classic Legends/BSA Company CEO Ashish Joshi is the man in charge of relaunching BSA, but prior to this has had extensive experience of handling other historic British brands. After working for 15 years at Royal Enfield, rising to become its European Sales & Marketing Director based in London, he was appointed MD of Triumph’s newly-founded Indian operation in December 2010. Besides establishing the British firm’s nine-model CKD assembly setup in Haryana, 40km south of New Delhi, this also entailed planning a brand-new Triumph India factory outside Bangalore, initially to manufacture two versions of a new 250cc single-cylinder model.
But in September 2013 Triumph management cancelled the project, although by that April Joshi had already resigned from Triumph to join Mahindra, where he has since been working on strategic growth in the premium two-wheeled sector, which duly led to Mahindra purchasing the BSA trademark late in 2016.
“I’ve only ever worked for two other companies, and both were historic Classic names,” he says. “I ride a motorcycle every day, and I understand the ethos of creating a modern product bearing a name as famous as BSA’s, and the importance of living up to the expectations it generates.”
Q AND A
Ashish, when did you begin work on the development of the new BSA Gold Star 650 motorcycles?
We started four years ago, late in 2017. They’ve
