Racy Royal Enfield poster sold speed

 Packed with potential emotion, motorcycles are often depicted at the intersection of Art and Marketing. And there is nothing more moving than artistic depictions of speed. 

Except for one thing: just add the girl. 

"...but wait, the solitary knight of the prewar days has been joined by a hot girlfriend, as our hero hurtles down the road to prove he is no Model T owner," writes Paul d'Orleans in his essay "Selling Speed" on The Vintagent blog. 

His example is R.C. Reyrolles' 1946 painting of a prototype HRD-Vincent Series B Rapide. 

The painting shows the Vincent nearly airborne with speed, its manly rider tightly embraced by a terrified girl. Her skirt is blown back on her shapely and oh-so-endangered thigh. 

It's my favorite motorcycling image, although not one I'd personally seek to emulate.

1946 R.C. Reyrolles painting of HRD-Vincent and riders.

But wait!

I've found a rare Royal Enfield version of the same scene.

I noticed this artistic treasure in the Royal Enfield factory scrapbook of 1930 press clippings, made digitally available by Bob Murdoch, archivist of the Royal Enfield Owners Club (UK).

The clipping is a magazine report on advertising window display posters made available to Royal Enfield dealers in 1930.

With flying motorcycle, crouching rider, and pretty passenger, it could have served as the draft version for Reyrolle's Vincent painting of 1946.

Britain's Cycle Trader magazine showed two of the new Royal Enfield posters, including this one, in its edition of, Nov. 4, 1930.

Magazine clipping in Royal Enfield factory scrapbook shows the poster.

The caption: "MORE 1930 POSTERS -- Two of the striking window bills that are available for Royal Enfield dealers. Both are produced in attractive colors. Equally powerful posters relating to pedal cycles are also issued, along with other well designed display matter."

Of course the Cycle Trader clipping is in black and white, so we don't know what "attractive colors" graced the original window bills.

For purposes of this blog item I let the Palette.fm program make its best guess. The result is not unpleasing.

A version of the black and white clipping with color added by AI.

But who was the artist? I see no sign of an artist's name on the poster. What a shame.

And who was that girl?

The Royal Enfield rider and his girlfriend are less daring than the Vincent couple. Our girl doesn't wrap her arms around her man, or hide her face in terror.

But you have to give the Royal Enfield girl points for the scarf, or ribbon, flowing care free from her hat. And she is showing plenty of leg, enhanced exactly as in the Reyrolles painting by holding her foot just so.

I guessed, probably incorrectly, that the Royal Enfield in the painting is the Model JF31. That's the  488cc overhead-valve, four-valve single that made such a splash at the Olympia Motorcycle Show the same year the window poster came out.

The forward-sloping motor, long pushrod tunnels, and fat fishtail silencer look right; but all these features would have been shared with some two-valve Royal Enfields of that year.

What made me think of the 488cc four-valver is that it would have been the fastest of the Royal Enfield line, and thus most worthy of a painting.

But, then, maybe not. 

A woman in white in a 1930 Royal Enfield photograph.

In the Hitchcocks Motorcycles archive of Royal Enfield factory images is a young woman in white, sitting on "a 346cc Royal Enfield Model CO. This RE model was for the 1931 season and features OHV and a total loss oil pump mounted externally on the timing cover."

Could this be the woman and motorcycle in the painting?

Take a look at another photo, this one from Royal Enfield's Instagram account. It's the same motorcycle, RX6637, and she is wearing the same outfit. And doesn't she look prettier in profile?

Another view of the same girl on the same Royal Enfield.

I found one more set of 1930 photos showing a similar looking girl, but in a different outfit with a different Royal Enfield.

These two photos appeared in Peter Miller's book "Royal Enfield, The Early History." One shows her pushing the motorcycle through a gate, and the other has her perched fetchingly on another gate. (Check "gate, symbol, female, Freudian.")

A Royal Enfield, but not the motorcycle in the painting.

The caption in Peter Miller's book tells us this:

"Works promotional photographs of the 488cc OHV Standard Two-port Model EL. The implication is that it is the lady who is the rider and it is she who has taken her boyfriend for a ride, although hardly dressed for riding."

Different dress, but is she the girl in the painting?

I will go out on a limb and say that whoever parked that motorcycle did a poor job of it. Is she supposed to pick it up?

No, the motorcycle is posed that way for art's sake. It would be a less eye-catching photograph if the motorcycle were solidly on its stand.

For one thing, an upright motorcycle would have blocked the view of her legs, wouldn't it?