Win a dashcam

Royal Enfield first used the Bullet model name during the 1930s on a range of lighter, tuned versions of its existing 250cc, 350cc and 500cc overhead-valve, single-cylinder models.

The Bullet name, however, became most associated with the 350cc trials models which were essentially road models with high-level silencer. Following the Second World War in 1948, the company revived the Bullet name on a sensational new 350cc sports model that featured the company’s own telescopic front forks and swinging arm rear suspension. The engine was an overhead-valve single cylinder unit with its dry-sump oil tank in a compartment in the rear of the crankcase and the four-speed Albion gearbox was rigidly bolted to the crankcase in a semi-unit construction layout. Prototypes were entered in the 1948 Colmore Cup Trial and went on to achieve their first major victory in the International Six Days Trial later in the year. The production models included road, trials and scrambles versions and there was even a racer during the mid-1950s. A 500cc Bullet was added to the range in 1953 featuring alloy brakes and a cast alloy Casquette that combined the steering head, instrument panel and headlamp housing.

This example is a 500cc ‘Big Head’ Bullet, so named because of the extra cylinder head finning. It was purchased for the NZ Classic Motorcycles collection via an auction in Staffordshire in April, 2008, from a private Royal Enfield collector in Newton Abbot, Northern Ireland, who had owned it since 1998 and had kept it in centrally-heated storage, unused, ever since. It is accompanied by receipts for an extensive restoration and two expired MOTs from 1997/8 and 1998/99. Its original UK V5 registration document shows that it had passed through eight former owners since 1980.