Norcroft Royal Enfield V-twin project roars back to life

Back on the road again: the Norcroft V-twin Royal Enfield.

Before there was a Musket, Bill Hurr and Richard Hurst of the UK built their own Royal Enfield V-twin. Their 2004 effort went as far as a running prototype. Now Paul Crowe reports in The Kneeslider blog that their Norcroft V-twin project has been revived.

There's a new website, with pictures of castings — made in India — for the bottom end of a new motor. The website suggests production would be in India, where there certainly would be huge demand for it.

The hope of Hurr and Hurst had been to build a classic British V-twin. Bore and stroke of the Royal Enfield Bullet matched that of the iconic Vincent Black Shadow.

The prototype proved the soundness of their engineering, but financial constraints and "increasingly stringent legislation" put plans for limited production on hold.

With new backing and a production connection in India, Norcroft now hopes to go forward.

There's a clever video, shot in December 2013, of the prototype on the road. It ends with "To Be Continued."

It's worth a look: