Royal Enfield's mad Dirty Duck debuts

Indian company Royal Enfield revealed two factory-built custom bikes at the Wheels & Waves custom bike show in Biarritz, France over the weekend. The bikes were both built in the UK, and this is the first time the company has officially built anything like.

The two bikes are completely different in terms of overall styling with the ‘Dirty Duck’ aimed at recreating the ‘survive anything’ build quality of off-road vehicles, while the dragster-inspired Mo’ Powa’ features a turbocharged version of the Classic 500 engine.

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Royal Enfield Dirty Duck

The Dirty Duck is aimed at recreating the off-road cars and the deep-water wading snorkels they feature so they can pass through rivers without drowning the engine.

Royal Enfield say the Dirty Duck is a bike aimed at giving the impression of utilitarian toughness and the lines of the Continental GT it’s based up helped to achieve that. To add to the off-road theme, there are chunky Continental TKC80 tyres on the original rims, an aluminum sump-guard to protect the motor and frame from any damage and increase overall durability.  The frame has been shortened at the rear to accommodate a luggage rack.

The rusty fuel tank has been done on purpose in order to “tell a tale of its long life of surviving adventures and at the same time, make it obvious that one should not feel bad about dropping or hesitate from pushing the Dirty Duck to its absolute limits”.

Royal Enfield say: “The snorkel is without a doubt the highlight of this motorcycle which has been hand crafted by the extraordinary craftsmen at Harris Performance. Additionally, the air box has been modified to allow the passage of the straight-through exhaust.”

And the Royal Enfield Mo’ Powa’

This turbocharged 500cc bike is Royal Enfield’s take on a drag bike, and gets a lengthened wheelbase thanks to a longer Continental GT swingarm. Add in lowered forks with stiffer springs, flattened handlebars, K-Tech twin rear shocks mounted on lower mounts, and the dragster look I scomplete.

A Classic 500 Royal Enfield engine is a little lacking the oomph department for drag racing of any kind so a little extra performance has been added thanks to a turbocharger. Royal Enfield also ditched the standard fuel injection for a carburettor, removed the airbox and swapped some of the gauges for a boost gauge and an air-fuel meter.

The front wheel has been retained while the rear is a considerably larger than stock Excel Rim. For some reason the stock tyres were replaced by Continental TKC70 knobbies; not exactly the sort of thing most drag bikes do but hey, this is the world of custom bikes and it’s more about the looks than performance.

The custom-built exhaust has been fabricated at Harris Performance and has more in common with a MotoGP exhaust than the usual basic efforts seen in the custom world. The turns of the exhaust were too tight to bend as a whole so the pipe had to be constructed out of many small sections of tubing. 

 

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