as the basis — but also vintage-era Triumph twins of the
Marlon Brando/Wild One pre-Bonneville generation. But
as more and more war veterans returned, the shortage of
civilian bikes ramped up prices, leading them to acquire
now-unwanted military dispatch bikes, which they then
“bobbed” by cutting back the rear fender — hence the term
“bobtail” — as well as stripping off other unwanted parts
to make the result as light as possible for street racing.
Going from a dead stop to flat out as fast as possible was
the bobber’s mantra, as practiced in the illegal street drags
staged throughout the U.S. back then. A bobber represented
a minimalist approach to bike building that was made for
go, not show, hence anything that
didn’t constitute a necessity was
deleted. Just like on the Brass
Rajah.
One of Harley’s recent best-
sellers has been the Bobber-style
Forty Eight, and Triumph’s authen-
tically styled new Bonneville
Bobber has become the fastest-
selling model in the history of the brand. Mid Life Cycles’
Brass Rajah shows the Royal Enfield parent factory how they
might achieve the same goal.
With the Brass Rajah, Michael and his team aimed to
build a bike that emphasizes the design strengths of Royal
Enfield’s Classic range, focusing on its upright, sculpted,
timeless-looking single-cylinder engine. “We took a brand-
new Royal Enfield Classic 350, sat it on the workshop floor,
walked around it a few times, and then started pulling
bits off it,” Michael says. “After stripping off all the many
unwanted pieces and staring at the engine sitting high in
the rolling frame, we realized we needed to visually lower
and physically lengthen the profile of the bike.” The latter
was achieved by lengthening the swingarm by 2.95 inches
(75mm) with an all-new tubular steel design that was the
handiwork of Andrew Hallam of Hallam Performance.
Next came the fuel tank. “The standard Royal Enfield
Classic tank is nicely shaped in side profile, but our build
required a longer, leaner, lower tank,” Michael says. “We
tried several possibilities, including some we had lying on
the workshop shelves. None of them quite worked until we
came across a replica 1930s Norton tank in a catalog. With
the 31-day build deadline shortening, it wasn’t till the box
arrived and we sat the fully painted tank on the frame that
we knew we had our solution. Project RE350 lived!”
Michael then asked local paint-
er Glen Stevens to repaint and
pinstripe the tank to stay true to
his original black-and-gold design
brief. This also allowed the use
of the curvaceous Royal Enfield
winged brass badges on the tank’s
flanks.
Then the build team turned to
the details. “Building a custom bike requires two things — a
unifying central theme that helps define the build and keep
it pure to the original intent; and hundreds of decisions
about details,” Michael says. “From early on, we’d wanted
some of those detail parts to be in brass to evoke the Art
Deco era. From the brass tank badges, torpedo-shaped turn
signals and extravagant wing-nut on the brass brake rod,
through to the brass-rimmed custom speedo, the handlebar
clamp and wire wheel spoke nipples, I reckon we’ve achieved
our aim. We also had to give the bike a name, so what better
after fitting all that than to call it the Brass Rajah!”
By this time, the team had sourced many other parts
including the shrouded BSA-style rear shocks replacing thehttp://www.MotorcycleClassics.com 67
“We took a brand-new Royal
Enfield Classic 350 ... and
then started pulling bits off it.”