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Royal Enfield Thunderbird 500: Road Test
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Royal Enfield's latest flagship model is out, and no it's not a Classic, but the all new Thunderbird 500. But does this retro cruiser have what it takes to bear the Enfield standard high and proud? We spend some long hours in the saddle to find out
It’s always a very exciting prospect when Royal Enfield launches a new flagship. The smallish Chennai based company has been churning out a steady stream of motorcycles almost since the days of the Raj and if anyone was to look at the kind of bikes the company made then and what’s rolling out of the factory gates right now, they might be forgiven for thinking little has changed in over the last five decades or so. But they’d be dead wrong. Classically styled and nostalgia fuelled they might be, but the boffins at Royal Enfield have slowly, but steadily, modernising the motorcycles they make, at this juncture they probably offer a very interesting mix of old world and new in a way nobody has really done so far.
The last big jump we saw what the appropriately named Classic 500 – a bike that looks like a 1950s Bullet, but is powered by a modern aluminium-block 500cc electronic fuel injected engine which shot to flagship status in the company’s line-up. And we absolutely loved it in every way. So you can imagine then that when RE announced that a new flagship was coming out in the form of the Thunderbird, it left us a little stumped.
Let me get this one fact out of the way. I’m not what you might call an ‘Enfield-guy’, but I’ve had the opportunity of clocking a few thousand kilometres on the older Twinspark 350cc Thunderbird during the 2009 Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey. While the bike certainly managed to impress me, it still wasn’t the quintessential ‘Enfield’ for me, and that slot always belonged to bikes like the Machismo (LB) 500 and more recently the Classic/Desert Storm 500. And I absolutely adore these bikes, so it was with natural scepticism that I approached this new Thunderbird 500.
It’s got the ‘Machismo’
In the way it looks that is. While an average Joe might have difficulties distinguishing an RE Classic from a Standard, there is no mistaking this new Thunderbird 500 for anything else on the road. Now everyone, including myself, had first seen the T-bird 500 in January this year at the 2012 Auto Expo in Delhi, and based on that I had already formed an opinion on the way it looks. Let’s just say that it wasn’t a very positive one.
But after seeing the bike standing in front of me in our office parking, I realised that I mustn’t have seen the bike at the Expo very properly and how wrong my opinion had been so far. The bike is absolutely striking any way you look at it. While the overall proportions of the original Thunderbird (which has been around for the last 10 years by the way) have been maintained, the new bike is full of little changes, both aesthetic and technical that gives it a very different aura.
In an unfaired bike, the engine is a standout member of the design and forms a big part of the aesthetic appeal. In the first 350cc T-bird, the archaic AVL engine had been somewhat of an eyesore. This was thankfully revised when the AVL was swapped out for the Twinspark UCE mill in 2008. Four years hence however, the design gurus at RE have taken a very different approach with the fuel-injected 500cc UCE motor that has been plonked into this new T-bird. Gone is that dull aluminium finish, replaced by a full matte black treatment to the crankcase while the block features a similar flat black finish, albeit with buffed edges on the cooling fins. The result is absolutely stunning and vastly reminiscent of what you find on some of the Evolution engines on the Harley-Davidson Sportsters.
The fuel tank has also been enlarged, and while we shall discuss the benefits of this a little later, combined with new engine design, it gives the bike a much more muscular stance. Then there are all the little details such as the new projector assembly housed inside the main headlight, the new blue backlit meters with a tacho as well as an LCD display, the split seat, new smaller indicators, redesigned rubberised footpegs, a new LED tail lamp assembly, a completely redesigned exhaust pipe... the list is rather endless. And in the classic case of “You can have it any colour as long as it’s black”, the Thunderbird 500 is offered in three shades of black, which normally would’ve been a major downer, but in combination will all the new bits, the end result is quite impressive.
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Readers' opinions ( 27 )
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Kitarp
Looks-Classiest... no1 can question this (though i prefer the older look of TBTS perhaps bcoz am more acquainted with it)Comfort-nobody can match(dunno abt HD but my TBTS 350 old one has the most comfortable seats.....)Mileage-gr8 4 indian's (as per 350cc bikes r concerned) {40 easily}Service-poor... :( didnt expect this frm RESpares-costly but quality is grtDownside-Cruising over 80 and the bike starts vibrating...... :( and doesnt also go faster than 85 odd... (any suggestions as 2 improve my speed i.e. reach 100 atleast...)
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akshay
one and the only go getting on road machine -------Thunderbird rocks in all the parameters...clocking in a single go to 1000km without knocking its head....its amazing....
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Kusuman
I dont Know aditya Why you say so... recently one BMW got some trouble with engine in the first988 kms after few days of delivery. So you want the owner to say that BMWs Sucks.. No way. Bullets
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Baldev Singh
I have TB 350 for last 3 years and it is a fantastic bike for Indian roads city/highway. Mileage is good, no problems either on engine or the body. Shortly am going to convert to TB 500. Incidently I have a Honda CB 350 Twin. Thunderbird is beautiful.
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