This subject has popped up on another forum… Japanese retail Group VT Holdings have purchased Caterham Cars with immediate effect. They were already the importers of the brand, also bringing into Japan Lotus Cars and Royal Enfield motorcycles… I’ve never owned one, but with so much history, it would be welcome news to see the brand continue forward…
2 Likes
yep agree, however its a bleeding shame such British heritage has come to this
2 Likes
My grandfather bless his sole was a Royal Enfield man and he would be turning in his grave to see this Marque come to this…what ever happened to the prestigious “Made In Britain” logo 
That’s the irony of it… Created and Invented in Britain, then sold-out to companies overseas… 
Royal Enfield wasn’t a foreign takeover. Enfield and Madras Motors set up a JV in India, to assemble the Bullets. The Indian Army wanted loads of them, and needed continued spares support. It was an obsolete model in the UK.
Royal Enfield today is and was always an Indian company.
As for Caterham, what ever happens to it, leaves me unmoved. Just a minor manufacturer which hasn’t contributed that much to motoring really.
MG is being rather subversive
Royal Enfield was a brand name under which The Enfield Cycle Company Limited of Redditch, Worcestershire[1] sold motorcycles, bicycles, lawnmowers and stationary engineswhich they had manufactured. Enfield Cycle Company also used the brand name Enfield without Royal.
The first Royal Enfield motorcycle was built in 1901. The Enfield Cycle Company is responsible for the design and original production of the Royal Enfield Bullet, the longest-lived motorcycle design in history.
Thanks for that and you are of course right - VT Holdings are just responsible for them being imported into Japan…! 
1 Like
I wouldn’t get too misty eyed -Lotus was happy enough to flog off the Seven in '73 and has been hopping in and out of bed with foreign suitors and one night stands for years - GM , Toyota , Artioli (the Bugatti owner ) and now Geely . Sevens are big in Japan, and I’d rather they were Japanese owned than the current mob , which had absurdly ambitious ideas , none of which worked . I think the Japanese , possibly even more than we do, really get what Sevens are about .
As for British motor bikes - they seemed to be stuck in an oily time warp until the Japanese reinvented the concept by making bikes you didn’t need rugby player thighs to start, which didn’t break down and which developed more power , reliably , than anyone had thought possible .
4 Likes
I couldn’t agree more. As a lifelong motorcyclist/biker I started riding in the mid 70’s so went through the end of the British motorcycle industry.
The Japanese weren’t necessarily just better design and production engineers, they also invested heavily in the product and ongoing development, something that was and still is sorely lacking in the Uk.
Most if not all British bikes of the late 60’s and into the 70’s were just minor changes of designs that were born in the 40’s and 50’s, leaky, clunky, unreliable, underpowered, poorly assembled and out of date imo.
Misty eyed nostalgia has its place but in reality the British bike industry deserved to fail as the bikes were rubbish in comparison to what else was available.
Even that bastion of Britishness, Triumph Motorcycles, are built overseas (Thailand) and all the better and more affordable for it.
1 Like
Enfields history in India goes back way before the late 1970s. The original purchase was in the 1950s, by the Indian Army, who needed thousands of dispatch bikes. Enfield signified that they were getting rid of the model, and so the tooling was sold to India (the JV) in the first instance to makie sure the Indian Army bikes remained servicable, but also so they coud make them for the Indian market. In production in India since the 1960s. Those early Indian Enfields fetch good money now.
Pre-Covid, my job took me to Hyderabad 4-5 times a year (and I hope to resume that soon, but my guys in India are really getting hammered by this virus right now). Jai bhole ki, indeed.
Everytime, I am looking out for the Enfields in the sea of Hero Hondas. You see them, they stand out due to the phut phut sound, and with tremendous livery (except for the new ones, because for some reason, they are promoting colour schemes to imitate army surplus). Those pinstripes on the tanks are stll handpainted. The old ones in India fetch decent money
Thats still £650 for a diesel model, over 50 years old.
This looks the part, but its difficult to say if its actually all original
Triumph bikes now; not really the old Triumph bikes are they? Triumph Engineering went under, and the name was brought up (BMW still retains the Triumph Cars name).
In a similar vein, Ant Anstead, with some other sleeping partners, is trying to relaunch Radford Coachworks (and one of his partners has the rights to Hooper). I’m not holding my breath.
He already has surely? For reasons which I cannot fathom , Radford have launched a ‘reimagining’ of the near forgotten , and largely undistinguished Lotus 62 . Jenson Button is involved , but once again I have no idea why . If I were choosing a restomod/ recreation , it’d have a Singer or Alfaholics badge .
As slow as a speeding Bullet…
Went to Le Mans to watch the 24hr race back in 2004 in a Caterham, 2 up with camping gear. It was the most uncomfortable journey I’ve ever undertaken wish I’d been in my mx5 instead.
I definately wouldn’t want one
I’m surprised no one mentioned Jaguar/ Land Rover being Indian since 2008
Oh! and Vauxhall (" A British Brand since 1903") owned by the group that owns Peugeot/Citroen
Rolls Royce BMW owned
Bentley VAG Group owned
Vauxhall were taken over by General Motors in 1903, so they were about as British as Ford UK was.
Then there was the ill fated S.A.A.B.
The end hastened by trying to punt out absolute s***boxes of under developed tosh like the 9-3 ( Vectra in party frock)which is still made, I think, by the Chinese in Tianjin by some sort of SAAB-Chinese partnership.
I used to know a chap up here, a director, who went through 2 of them ( the 2nd being a replacement for the first from SAAB) as they pretty much fell apart underneath, and the cheap & nasty leccies did not help.
They looked nice, and were a nice ride…just hopelessly rushed out the factory gates before they had been fettled up.
V6 Turbo was a fearsome weapon to be fair.
1 Like
Sorry but Vauxhall sold to GM in November 1925
1 Like
My error, sorry. But the fact remains that they weren’t British when they were sold off to the Pug/Citroen group and hadn’t been for about 90 years.