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| What is a new motorcycle doing in a place like this? |
The Australian moto-journalist thought it was strange. Royal Enfield introduced its shiny new Shotgun 650 model to the United States in Los Angeles in 2024, amid graffiti and urban blight.
"Why LA? And why the grungy Downtown area?" he asked. Here's the answer he got:
"Royal Enfield Chief of Design Mark Wells explained it was the ideal place to experience the Shotgun 650 in a range of environments, including what turned out to be sometimes messy urban riding, a loop through a run-down industrial precinct, a multi-lane freeway experience and a blast through canyon country on some fabulous twisty roads."
And, besides, Los Angeles has a custom-bike scene and, according to Wells, the Shotgun 650 looked to those customs for inspiration.
Compared to the rest of the Royal Enfield 650 lineup, the Shotgun looks hunky rather than sleek.
It's a bobber, unafraid of grunge, tattoos, graffiti. It looks like breaking the law is its business.
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| Where, in this century, did she find a phone booth in Los Angeles? |
The launch included a video of the Shotgun 650 racing in darkness, through a spray-can defaced tunnel and along the strictly off-limits concrete ditch of the dry Los Angeles River.
The video is a fantasy, with a sky of ball lighting and a phone booth — a phone booth! — in which an anxious looking young woman attempts to reach someone and fails.
She drops the phone, mounts her Shotgun 650 and competes for "Most Insane Velocity" with a male rider on another Shotgun.
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| Dawn in Los Angeles. Magically, there is no traffic in this direction. |
The couple is joined by other Shotgunners, ending with six of them somehow now doing synchronized maneuvers in the desert.
That was two years ago. So I was surprised, recently, when the Internet served up that video as a commercial on my laptop.
Apparently, Royal Enfield wants you to know the Shotgun 650 hasn't dropped its wild ways.
The tagline is "Inspired by Custom, for Custom."
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