Royal Enfield V-twin builder unveils plans

The young man from Columbus, Ohio who built his own V-twin Royal Enfield tells how he did it and how he's trying to make it possible for you to have your own 700 or 1,000cc Royal Enfield V-twin motorcycle.

Aniket Vardhan tells how years of day dreams and more years of hard work resulted in his beautiful Enfield Musket on his new web site, MusketVTwin.com

It's a stirring story, one of those rare times outside the movies when the lone hero overcomes all to create something marvelous. The web site explains how Aniket hopes to improve the castings at the heart of the Musket and make them available to those courageous enough to follow in his footsteps.

The web site includes a splendid gallery and links to the inspiring videos of the Musket in action.

Pictures are worth thousands of words, but Aniket also shares a little of his design philosophy. The full story is on his site, but here's what caught my attention:

"1. Keep it as ridiculously simple as the original Bullet engine. Therefore, no modern updates to major engine internals, so it still has the stock tappets, no hydraulics, and the stock piston oil pumps...

"2. Improve the oil filter – I machined a new filter housing which uses a standard modern cartridge type filter available at Advance. This is not a screw on car type filter – that doesn’t look right, so I have a finned aluminum housing I made.

"3. Aesthetically — and this was very important to me being an industrial designer — keep the “vintage” and “Enfield” cues strong. I thought I would pick up from the last Enfield big twin, the Interceptor. The rounded profile of the front of the crankcase and pleasingly smooth and gently radiused forms of the castings and the cooling fins on the side of the wet sump. A wet sump simplifies matters and also ties in with the last Enfield big twin, the Interceptor Mark 2, which also had a wet sump.

"4. I love the external copper oil pipes that are such beautiful visual elements on vintage engines, so I decided to incorporate that as well...

"5. Keep the frame mods to a minimum and again keep the “vintage” feel going by keeping the single down tube — the Enfield big twins of yore had single down tube frames and handled well..."

The web site also includes a contact form for more information, should you be interested in getting in line for your Musket kit. Oh, and by the way: Hollywood? What are YOU waiting for?

Videos of the Enfield Musket V-Twin in action:

 He's alive! January 23rd, 2009, about 2:00 a.m. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

Motor installed, ready to ride!

 Start-up and quick spin round the block

 On the road, rolling raucously!

 

Mufflers are on, start up and rev.

 

 On the road with mufflers.

 

Videos of the Enfield Musket V-Twin in action.