The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 is A copy of the Triumph Bonneville! FACT or FICTION?

[Music] hey up there this video has been a very long time coming i've been meaning to sort of make something along these lands for the last two two and a half years in fact ever since i introduced the royal enfield interceptor 650 to the channel back in 2019 the only problem was there was a sort of ingredient missing that i needed for the video and sourcing that ingredient was difficult because they're very rare now this was actually the main reason for my visit to hitchcock's a couple of weeks ago and this video along with the review of the meteor 350 and the upcoming shop tour video of hitchcock's is actually courtesy of my patrons people that donate money to this channel every month enabling me to make content for everyone to enjoy there was just enough money in the kitty last month for me to be able to afford the travelling expenses because it's quite a way to hitchcock from where i live and petrol is expensive so thank you very much to those people and rest assured i extracted the maximum content i possibly could from the day so that you guys are getting your money's [Music] worth i checked out the sales figures for the royal enfield interceptor 650 this morning before making this video and i didn't realize just how out of date i am with the current situation the interceptor was the uk's best selling naked motorcycle last year it even knocked the bmw rgs series off top spot a position that it's enjoyed for over a decade and the figures suggest that it's on course to do exactly the same this year i knew when i very first saw the initial reports of this bike being in production that if royal enfield got the recipe right they were gonna have a hit on the hands i honestly didn't expect it to be such a big hit motorcycle snobbery is one of my pet hits and jealousy is an ugly thing and what i didn't expect when i took the interceptor on was the push back that i was going to get from triumphants i'm not tiring all triumph motorcycle owners or fans with the same brush but for the first few months that i had the interceptor i got more than my fair share of abuse because i've taken the interceptor on and in a lot of these people's eyes royal enfield is an inferior brand and as i was told only this weekend in the comments triumph is the only true iconic british motorcycle apparently none of the other dozen or so brands existed i was publicly hung drawn and quartered on facebook i was abused and even threatened here on youtube for daring to add a royal enfield to my collection of motorcycles and of course if you behave like that towards a yorkshire man he'll just do it all the more which is why i now have three royal enfields in the channel stable i will always champion a cause that i think is worth it [Music] now one of the biggest criticisms i got about the interceptor is that it was just a poor man's copy of the triumph bonneville i got a slew of these comments at the time and they've continued right up to today that basically the royal enfield interceptor is not an original design concept royal enfield needed a win and the only way they could get that win was to directly copy the triumph bonneville after all royal enfield have only ever made the bullet derailed models apart from that they have absolutely no other history now i did start off by trying to explain in the comments to people that the royal enfield interceptor was a true model back in the 1960s but for the most part these guys were having none of it that didn't believe it and over time the ignorance of these people has really started to grit on me so when dan hitchcock told me that they had a 1969 mach 2 interceptor and i was welcome to come down and make a comparison video if i wanted i jumped at the chance now we generally refer to the current iteration of the interceptor as the mach 3 but technically it's sort of a mach 4. i'll go into that in a moment as you will see when i finally get around to doing the hitchcock's shop tour hitchcock's is an aladdin's cave of all things royal enfield they have made it their mission to save and preserve various royal enfield motorcycles dating back to 1910. this is a private collection of iconic motorcycles including three interceptors this map one air a mach 2 that i'm going to show you in a moment and even a prototype mach 3 a bike that was destined to go into production if it hadn't been for the original royal enfield going into liquidation if it had the current royal enfield interceptor could have looked very different now this video isn't intended as a historically and technically correct comparison of the interceptor mac 2 versus the current interceptor it's purely an aesthetic comparison to settle an argument that's been thrown at me for the last two years [Music] even back in the day the 750cc interceptor was a rare thing on british roads it was an export model aimed at the us market a sort of scrambler or dirt bike in fact originally it was a bare bones bike that didn't even come with a lighting kit initially it didn't do very well not being a road legal bike customers shared away from it but when all the accoutrements for road legal use were added the bike took off in the states and although it was perhaps never as famous as the bonneville it accrued a devout following of royal enfield customers that helped to keep royal enfield afloat in the later darker days this is a relatively original 1969 export model and it's only when you see both of these bikes together that you realize that the current interceptor 650 is very much styled along the lines of the original interceptor and not the triumph bonneville at all the curious ski ramp style seat the upswept silencers the distinctly styled tank and even the aesthetics of the engine our 100 1969 interceptor although the layout of the engine has been swapped around somewhat to suit modern standards all the original design cues are there and the present in the new bike the only major differences at the design of the frame which is a little bit different and of course the fact that the new bike is fitted with disc brakes front and rear in order to comply with modern braking standards so whichever way you look at it the current mach 3 or mac depending which school of thought you subscribe to is a faithful homage to its 52 year old grandfather the 750 mark ii royal enfield may well have been playing triumph at the run game i don't doubt that but any suggestion that the interceptor is a rip-off of the bonneville is completely unfounded in fact it's ridiculous in fact as a yorkshire man playing devil's advocate considering the fact that some of royal enfield's innovations and design achievements were copied by triumph back in the day twin shock rear swing arm suspension springs to man it is actually the triumph that's a copy of the royal enfield i just thought i'd put that out there right once again thank you so much for watching this and my other videos and in doing so helping to support this channel i really do appreciate it if you're not a subscriber please consider subscribing to this channel you know the drill i will of course be back on friday so until then please ride safely and whilst all the trolls race off to the comments section to hit the dislike button and leave a blatantly desperate comment the rest of us can listen to this 52 years young 750 mach 2 interceptor in action here we go [Music] [Music] you

Channel: stuart fillingham

Views: 65,322

Rating: 4.9351101 out of 5

Keywords: motorcycle, motorbike, royal enfield, triumph, bonneville, interceptor 650, interceptor mk2, interceptor mk3, interceptor mk4, comparison, interceptor versus bonneville, himalayan, continental gt, bullet, bullit, meteor, meteor 350

Id: U3W_h0z6QXg

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021