BONNEVILLE. MONSTER. COMMANDO. VESPA. Bullet. A select list of motorcycle and scooter models so iconic in their own right that adding the name of the manufacturer is simply redundant. The Royal Enfield Bullet may have been ‘resting’ since 2020, when the last-ever 500cc version was manufactured, but this was a mere hiccup in the Bullet’s unrivalled claim to be the motorcycle with the longest continuous production run in history, ever since its 1932 debut.
And now the Bullet returns to Royal Enfield dealers around the world as an all-new design, based on RE’s latest generation J-Series air/oil-cooled 349cc long-stroke single-cylinder motor. This was introduced three years ago in the Meteor 350, with high bars and forward-mounted footrests as a custom hors d’oeuvre to the main dish. That came one year later as the Classic 350, the world’s largest-selling current motorcycle over 250cc, of which 432,000 units were built in India’s last full pre-Covid fiscal year up to April 2019 alone. That made up a 53% slice of RE’s 806,870-unit overall 2018/19 annual production, so for Eicher Motors, RE’s owner, developing a modern, fully emissions-compliant replacement for when the existing 350 Classic’s pushrod motor could
