Great old Royal Enfield adverts online

 Looking for something else on the Internet, I recently came across Rockers Bike Ads, a "Pre-1980 Database of British Motor Cycle Adverts." 

What a treasure trove for any fan of vintage British motorcycles. 

The extravagant collection of old-timey advertisements introduces itself this way: 

"Rockers Bike Ads is a non-profit resource for Motor Cycle enthusiasts and you're welcome to request free high res copies of the images by using the send ads link at the foot of each image. 

"Put simply this is a searchable database of (primarily) pre-1980 British Motor Cycle Industry advertisements classified by Manufacturer, Year and Product type. All material is sourced from original literature in my personal collection." 

Whose personal collection? Although the website doesn't say so, I suspect the powerhouse behind it is James Robinson, editor of The Classic Motor Cycle magazine and a prolific author of books on historic motorcycles.

I searched the database for "Enfield" and was rewarded with 509 vintage Royal Enfield advertisements to enjoy. 

Searching is a bit tricky: you are warned that the search function looks for exact matches, so don't get fancy. Keep your search keywords simple for best results.

It seems that it will find a 1931 image if you search dates between 1930 and 1932 but, oddly, might not find it if you search between 1925 and 1935! Quirky. Also I am not sure the offer of a high res image on request still stands -- I tried it and never heard back.

An impressive feature of the database is that the source and date of publication accompanies each image. This is a historical research tool at its best.

Paging through all those Royal Enfield advertisements from the past I found a bunch of favorites and some real oddities.

We've seen a photo of that girl in white before!

Image Number 17365 is from Motor Cycling magazine of Nov. 12, 1930, and touts the "FAST!" Royal Enfields in store for the 1931 model year.

This ad is illustrated with an unlikely drawing of an exuberant young woman riding a fast Royal Enfield.

The drawing is total fantasy, but it was no doubt inspired by a Royal Enfield factory photo found on the Hitchcocks Motorcycles website.

Model poses in Royal Enfield photo shoot for its 1931 motorcycles.

Another interesting example: Image 13486 is from Motor Cycling magazine of Oct. 19, 1944.

It features artwork of a gun crew of World War II in action but, in the background is a Bell P-39 fighter plane.

Although shown in RAF livery, the P-39 Airacobra was an American made airplane.

Artillery piece is a 2-pounder anti-tank gun.

Britain ordered hundreds of Airacobras from the U.S., but wasn't impressed with them, quickly passing them along to the Soviet Union. Only one RAF squadron, No. 601, operated the Airacobra, and not for long.

The plane is pretty distinctive, because its engine was behind the pilot instead of in the nose, requiring an air scoop behind the cockpit.

601 Squadron lines up. Note the air scoop behind the cockpit.

Why show this oddball plane rather than a more distinctly British fighter? It's fun to speculate. Maybe just because it's an eye-catching airplane?

The open mobile gun carriage shown in the ad matched no vehicle of World War II I knew of. Members of the Historic Military Vehicle Forum immediately identified it as a 2-pounder gun riding on a portee. 

What is a portee? It's exactly what you see in the ad. In search of a definition I quickly found the very photo that must have inspired the ad artwork.

The photo, in the collections of the Imperial War Museum, shows a New Zealand gun crew in North Africa, on Dec. 3, 1941.

New Zealand 2-pounder gun in North Africa, 1941.
(Copyright IWM E 3734E)

Rockers Bike Ads is given as the source for the book, "Royal Enfield Motor Cycle Advertisements 1906-1966," by David Robinson. The book is available from Amazon. 

The book is an impressive 418 pages. It claims:

"The Royal Enfield edition includes over 400 advertisements, complete with original publication dates and reference numbers tied to the Rockers Bike Ads database. While the company's broader history is well-documented, this collection offers a fresh and captivating way to trace its evolution through two world wars and shifting economic conditions.

"You'll discover how press adverts reflected the economic climate and regulations of the time, such as post-war petrol rationing and the rise of cycle-motors and sub-250cc motorcycles. Early advertisements highlight reliability, while later ones focus on performance and sporting achievements.

"Occasionally, themes like fuel economy and weather protection appear, though actual progress with the latter making few advances due to buyer resistance on visual appearance grounds. These adverts also highlight the minimal changes in fundamental motorcycle design over seven decades.

"Images are reproduced in grayscale, as they originally appeared, but with original full color adverts clearly marked as such."

Other books by David Robinson include collections of advertisements by motorcycle makers Francis-Barnett, BSA, Ariel, Norton and others.

In this video about his book on Triumph motorcycle history, Robinson credits the Mortons Archive (another excellent choice of images) as his source.

He also has collected historical advertisements for such aviation greats as de Havilland, and even RAF recruitment ads, based on a separate aviation database.

Remembering when to fill up with gas

 I haven't been riding my old Royal Enfield Bullet much lately. Life always seems to find a way to interfere with good intentions. 

So, Sunday, I decided to ride to church, another thing I don't do often enough. 

Since I don't ride every day now that I'm retired, and no longer commute to work, getting ready for the ride involved all the checks: drain the dry sump, pump up the tire pressure, clean the spark plug, check the valves for compression, and check the gas. 

The gas! How much do I have? 

There's no gas gauge, of course, so I keep track by making a note of the odometer reading at the last fill-up. But where to keep this note so I'd find it? 

Last time filled up I decided to tape the note to my helmet. I'd be sure to see it there. 

Except, this Sunday, I put the helmet on, nice and tight, without reading the note. I suppose I could have reached up and pulled it off to read it, but, truth is, I forgot about it entirely.

The Bullet started on the second kick. Good old Bullet! And so I rode off, my mileage note flapping unnoticed on the top of my helmet.

After not riding for awhile I was surprised how good it felt. Why don't I do this more often?

Church went fine, and so did the ride home. Putting away my helmet I encountered the note. It was still there, just a bit crinkled from the airflow around the helmet.

I straightened it out and taped it back onto the helmet.

What do you think? Will I remember it next time?

More racy Royal Enfield artwork from 1930

This was the best I could do to enhance a 95-year-old magazine clipping.

 Found: a rare illustration of a roaring 1930 Royal Enfield motorcycle and its speed-obsessed rider and his pretty girlfriend. 

Last week I wrote how I had noticed the artwork in the official scrapbooks of the historic Royal Enfield factory in Redditch, UK. A black-and-white magazine photo of it and its caption were pasted into one scrapbook. 

I'd never seen this image before, anywhere. 

According to the caption, the image was available to Royal Enfield dealers as a poster, to be displayed in their windows. It would have advertised the 1930 Royal Enfield motorcycles inside the dealership. 

The caption also said that the posters were in color (the magazine clipping, of course was printed only in black and white). 

I took the liberty of using an artificial intelligence program to colorize the image in the clipping. After all, the original had been in color, so this wasn't cheating.

Color made it look even better, although the dot-pattern "screen" used by the magazine reduced detail.

To find out more about the artwork I emailed Bob Murdoch, archivist at the Royal Enfield Owners Club UK, which possesses the scrapbooks. Bob had laboriously photographed the many pages of the scrapbooks, and had shared these with me.

Had he ever noticed this image?

After all, this was one clipping on one page among hundreds of pages. To my surprise, he replied the next day:

"I do recognize this picture from the historic artwork folder of the Archives and have attached our copy, which you'll note is not a color painting, but a newsprint-prepared black and white print."

Despite the dot pattern you can see the detail. (REOC Archive)

So the club had the image, a much better copy than the magazine clipping in the scrapbook! Unfortunately, it still had the dot pattern, and was still black and white.

But Bob was able to tell me a lot (and there was another surprise coming).

"Most of Royal Enfield's publicity images were created by line-tracing photographs with ink on a semi-transparent film laid on top of the photo. These were then enhanced with color, shade and movement lines, which is a very effective method for capturing correct detail and perspective.

"So, the painting mentioned would have been a color 'wash' of such a tracing. I was a technical illustrator in the aerospace industry for several years, so I recognize the method used. 

"Among the factory photographs there are quite a few posed riders on bikes, clearly for this purpose. My favorite one which comes to mind is the 1958 Crusader and rider balanced on a brick at a sporty angle, which was pen-and-washed for the 1958 advert/brochure."

Did the Archive have an original photo of a couple posing for the illustration that interested me?

"Unfortunately, no such photo survives of our adventurous couple in question, but one other aspect (from a different angle) was traced and enhanced from the same photoshoot. You'll see from the front number (license) plate that this is a Model JL of 1930."

Wait, there is another version of the speeding Royal Enfield, rider and pretty girl?

A different pose for the rider and best of all, no dot pattern.

Yes, and Bob attached a scan of that, too. It's still black and white, but it has NO screen pattern, meaning it's as fresh as the copy-artist made it.

I like it even better. Note how much more lifelike and realistic the rider looks in this version. I would bet that his friends could identify the fellow who posed for it.

Interestingly, this version of the image IS signed by an artist; you can see "H. Wilson" clearly in the lower right corner.

This time the artwork is signed: H. Wilson.

Unlike the first version, with the rider crouching low, I did find this second version on the Internet.

It appears, without explanation, in the humor section of Motorcycle Timeline, labelled "Joy of the Road." It is screened there, so it's likely it was published someplace in its day.

Readers, had you seen it before?

Found by Motorcycle Timeline, this version is labelled "The Joy of the Road."