Royal Enfield and why motorbike design must not be an art form

Mr Sellers, who are you, and what drives you?

At heart, I’m a problem-solver. That is precisely what drives me: turning a set of constraints into something truly good. That’s how our custom programme came about, and essentially, that is also the very foundation of design itself. You look at a task with all its constraints and shape it into something compelling.

What sort of child were you?

Curious, but rather quiet. I observed a lot, tried out a lot of things, and was constantly building something. So, a very logical starting point for a career in industrial design.

What turns a good motorbike into a motorbike with character?

Character is, first and foremost, a function of stance and proportion, just as it is in car design. An adventure bike sits higher, a sports motorbike lower; this, alongside other features, is what distinguishes the categories. Within a category, it then depends on how well the design and engineering have proportioned the vehicle in relation to the rider – whether it is convincing, using the golden ratio and millennia-old principles of proportion as its framework. What makes the difference is how these guidelines are shaped into something unique, and that is precisely where the design language comes into play.

With the Shotgun 650, the brief was to do something different, but not too different. Was that really the brief?

Yes, that applies to every model that builds on a legacy. You have to respect the brand’s history and not shock the customer base; buyers tend to be rather conservative when it comes to vehicles. So you preserve what people love about the brand, but push the design language a little further so that the model fits into the portfolio whilst still standing on its own.

Where exactly does that line lie? 

You can overdo it – we’ve seen that with other brands: everyone’s enthusiastic at first, then the model hits the market, and then everyone wonders what on earth it’s all about. That’s exactly where, for me, art differs from design. An artist can do whatever they want; that’s pure expression. Design has to take the customer into account, just as ergonomics and manufacturing do. The most important question remains: will anyone buy it?

How important is it to have a team that has the courage to challenge you?

Absolutely crucial. Friction between design and technology, between strategy and marketing, is inevitable. What’s important is that a team can disagree and still move forward as one afterwards. Fortunately, that works well for us.

You take old designs, such as the headlamp nacelle, and give them a new function. How much nostalgia can a motorbike handle?

Nostalgia in its purest form means simply copying what already existed. Instead, we translate the spirit of the historic models into something contemporary. The biggest challenge is almost always integrating new technology. We try to channel this into details that appeal to the sense of touch as much as possible – such as our metal switch clusters with their own rocker switches, or the shape of the grips: things that evoke the past but incorporate the latest technology. Internally, there’s sometimes a great deal of debate about finding the best solution.

You talk about the single, continuous line running along a motorbike, from the mudguard to the fuel tank. Why is this line, of all things, the essence of good design?

The central character line determines how our brain interprets a motorbike at first glance, even before we consciously perceive details or colours. If we don’t immediately understand what we’re seeing, we dismiss it mentally. With a car, this is a continuous body surface; with a motorbike, however, it is the alignment of individual components in relation to one another – which is far more difficult: if, for example, the height of the fuel tank changes, you may lose the line to the mudguard, and you have to decide anew what to adjust. Nevertheless, it is precisely this line that is crucial to understanding the motorbike as a whole.

You often draw comparisons with car design. Why that in particular?

Because cars are more accessible to most people; in Europe in particular, more people drive cars than ride motorbikes. The comparison also highlights just how different the approach must be between the two types of vehicle. We constantly observe what is happening around our customers and ask ourselves whether it suits our motorbikes.

Can you think of a specific example, a detail that you saw somewhere and adopted?

Not directly with the Shotgun 650 – that was deliberately a modern interpretation of the classic design, not a current trend. With other models, however, we do look at body shapes or lines. Sports motorbikes, for example, have changed significantly in style from the 1980s to the present day; at some point they became so compact that there was hardly any room left for a passenger. Now, larger shapes are making a comeback because retro is currently in vogue. It always depends on the product in question.

Do you see good motorbike design as closer to craftsmanship or to art?

Modern industrial manufacturing is, ultimately, the evolution of craftsmanship. Craftsmanship used to be simply the way things were made, whether spoons, bicycles or pots. What we do is more of an extension of craftsmanship than of art. The way we treat the surfaces and design language of a motorbike, on the other hand, is closer to sculpture and art, because it appeals to an emotional response and works with sculptural forms. Ultimately, however, all of this falls within the broader framework of manufacturing as a further development of craftsmanship. So if I had to choose, I’d say: craftsmanship.

Can you imagine a motorbike that looks great but isn’t much fun to ride?

(laughs) Absolutely – I’ve experienced that myself. With some motorbikes, customers don’t care how they ride; it’s all about style, and function is optional. With others, function is the driving force. It simply depends on the direction the product strategy takes the project.

Many brands are now looking for someone to take overall responsibility for their cultural and design identity. How do you handle this at Royal Enfield?

We have design, brand and strategy teams that work closely together, each with their own area of expertise: Industrial design focuses on the physical product, whilst the brand team handles communication and lifestyle integration. Because no single team dictates the entire picture, many perspectives are incorporated, and it is precisely this that creates genuine synergy when entering the market.

The background to the question: In the automotive industry, we are currently seeing more and more the role of a Chief Creative Officer who oversees everything. Would you like to have more control over these areas?

Designers tend to be obsessive; we actually always want to be in control of everything. But from a functional point of view, the way things are at the moment works very well, precisely because of the diversity of the results. We thrive more in creative chaos than under a single visionary authority. If we were all locked into a single direction, we might be more efficient, but less interesting.

How much weight does your brand’s history carry for the models of today and tomorrow? Or to put it another way: how much heritage does your brand need for its future?

With a heritage brand like Royal Enfield, history is always present; for our customers, it’s a guarantee that we are here, have always been here, and will remain here. That doesn’t mean we always do the same thing – we continue to evolve, but cautiously, so that everything stays within the family.

What should someone feel when they see a new Royal Enfield model for the first time?

Ideally, desire – that’s the aim of every product: you stand in front of it and think, ‘I want that.’ With motorbikes, so much is based on a passion that’s actually illogical; you don’t need it, you want it. After that, you should get the feeling of a solid, high-quality product that will be with you for a very long time.

You made use of the custom scene early on as a sort of trend laboratory, even before you joined Royal Enfield. What does a brand learn from people who take its products apart and reassemble them?

When we develop a motorbike, we have a vision of what the product should be. Customisers, on the other hand, give us an idea of what it could become. If you see lots of people making the same modification – the same exhaust, the same seat height – it shows just how firmly established that desire is, and that feeds into production decisions and our range of accessories. The second aspect is the sheer creativity of professional customisers: they create one-off pieces. This is hugely inspiring for us in design because it isn’t just theoretical. As they don’t have to worry about mass production, they can operate with a freedom that we don’t have. For us in the design department, this is hugely inspiring; you see something and think: ‘Of course, we can’t adopt this exactly as it is, but how could we incorporate some of it into our production models?’

Has anyone ever come to you and asked you to deliberately do less with a future model, so that there’s more scope for customisation?

Our motorbikes are deliberately kept very simple. The most common feedback we get is: ‘Thank you for not making it complicated.’ Many modern motorbikes have so much built-in electronics that removing a indicator causes the whole thing to go haywire – a real headache for customisers. Many of them don’t want to get too involved with the engine itself; they want to use it as a base and build something of their own around it, because in the end, the engine is usually what’s left once everything else has been removed. That’s why they value simple mechanics and simple electronics, and we stick to this principle, even though we inevitably have to become more complex due to emissions standards and regulations. We do, however, try to keep it as simple as possible. The enthusiasm is correspondingly high: We often hear how much simpler our motorbike was compared to another brand, where someone had to somehow hide the gauges inside the vehicle because nothing would work without them.

What role does motorsport play for the Royal Enfield brand, and for you personally?

Just as customisation pushes our aesthetics to the limit, motorsport pushes functionality to the limit for us: how much power, how high a rev count can we get from an engine without tearing it apart? In series production, we focus on reliability. In motorsport, on the other hand, the question is: how do we win the race within the regulations? Our twin-cylinder engine, for example, which we started with at 46 PS a good five or six years ago, now delivers more than 100 PS, without any forced induction. With a turbocharger or other retrofits, we can achieve even more – and all within the same engine, in the same casing. This shows us just what this engine is truly capable of.

And the racing series themselves – the Continental GT Cup or ‘Build. Train. Race.’ in the US – what role do they play?

It’s all about the sheer joy of racing. Professional racing quickly turns into an arms race, a battle of gadgets. If you put everyone on the same motorbike, it’s all about the rider themselves, and some of the most exciting races I’ve ever seen took place in our GT Cup or flat-track programme precisely for that reason.

Do components from racing ever make it into production models?

I can’t give any concrete examples at the moment, but you’ll be seeing things in the foreseeable future. Motorsport and customisation are part of our design team, not marketing; the same designers often work on the racing project and the standard model in parallel, which creates a direct link. And because they developed the standard model, they know exactly what’s possible and what isn’t, where something can be fitted and where it can’t. For the designers themselves, this is also appealing because a racing motorbike, much like a custom bike, requires fewer compromises: you don’t have to worry about traffic or speed bumps, so you can lower a sports motorbike and tailor it more rigorously to its purpose.

With the first all-female flat-track programme, you had a new target audience in mind right from the start. To what extent is this part of your brand identity?

The proportion of women amongst motorbike buyers rarely exceeds 14 per cent; to me, that’s a huge missed opportunity. With ‘Build. Train. Race.’, which runs as both a flat-track and road racing programme in the US, we’re trying to break down all the barriers at once. We show that a motorbike isn’t difficult to handle and instil a sense of confidence. The message is simple: anyone can do it. The women in the programme are our most compelling ambassadors.

What’s the first thing you change on your own motorbikes?

Usually the exhaust – I make it a bit louder. With electrification, I’ll probably have to rethink that soon.

Do your own motorbikes ever actually get finished?

(laughs) To be honest, I’ve got several, all at different stages of incompleteness – never-ending projects. But that’s exactly what I enjoy: the process itself, not the finished result.

Would a deadline help you with that?

For personal projects, deadlines would be necessary; otherwise, you’d be working on them forever. But actually, I’m not looking for help; I simply enjoy the process itself.

What excites you more about motorbikes today than it did at the start of your career?

At the start, it was mainly about getting models into production. What I’ve come to appreciate in the meantime is the interplay with marketing, engineers and budgets – creating a whole atmosphere rather than just a single object.

When was the last time you simply went for a ride without thinking about design?

I’m actually always thinking about design; it’s something you can hardly switch off in this profession. It’s less about genetics and more about the way you look at things – never just a single thing, but always how it interacts with everything else.