Royal Enfield expansion | Design boss, Mark Wells hints at future 450 single cylinder models

Royal Enfield’s Chief of Design, Mark Wells has suggested that we could see further expansion of the brand’s 452cc single-cylinder Sherpa engine family – confirming that the Indian brand are already exploring further options.

“One hundred percent. There’s definitely lots of things we can do with that and actually there’s more than you could do with it than we have resource or time to develop,” Wells said when asked during a recent interview.

The liquid-cooled, six speed engine first appeared in the Himalayan 450 adventure bike for early 2024 and has now grown to also include the sub-£5000 Guerrilla 450 naked roadster. Both share a motor and are mechanically identical – with only sprocket changes separating the two.

“You look at it, and you think there’s a thousand and one things we could do that would be really cool with that,” Wells continued. “If you’ve ridden the Himalayan, then a supermoto on that would be awesome, or a sportsbike on the Guerrilla could work really well, you know?”

Enfield are no strangers to platform sharing, with their J-Series 350 single found in the Classic, HNTR, Meteor, and Bullet. The larger 650 twin is also split across the Shotgun, Super Meteor, Interceptor, and Continental GT, barring minor revisions.

“I think there’s plenty of opportunity and plenty of potential and we’re definitely looking at other stuff,” Wells confirmed. “I can’t say what obviously, but there’s lots of scope.

“You look at the custom scene and you see how people have different takes on the same product right, and somebody can take a product that everybody’s not sure about, and then twist it make it custom, and you get a totally different appeal to it. That’s what we try and do internally.”

Exactly what this will be remains to be seen, with the latest Guerrilla set to hit dealers this month.