According to recent reports, Royal Enfield has officially stopped accepting bookings for the Thunderbird 500 and Bullet 500 on its official website. Though the brand has not yet officially announced its plans of halting the production of its 500cc range, one can certainly expect the remaining stock in the dealerships to be the last. Apart from this, the Classic 500 is still available for bookings at the brand’s official website as Royal Enfield is waiting for the stock to clear up with the dealerships.
In addition to this, the brand has also removed the special edition variants of the Classic 500 from its official website. Since the substantial gap between the 350cc Royal Enfield motorcycles and the RE 650 twins is almost necessary to be filled, it is yet to be seen how the brand plans on expanding its cruiser range in the forthcoming years.
Popularly known to offer one of the most cherished retro cruisers range in the world, Royal Enfield has recently launched an updated version of its Classic 350 model with a BS6-compliant engine and a few cosmetic changes. As we reported earlier, Royal Enfield has no plans to launch the BS6-compliant models of their 500cc motorcycles due to poor demand.
The 2020 range of Royal Enfield Thunderbird and the Classic 350 has been spotted multiple times testing on the Indian roads though the production variants of the motorcycles are not entirely ready to be launched anytime soon. One can expect the Indian brand to launch its next-gen of motorcycles by mid-2020 though there has been no official confirmation made on the same.
Since the brand is currently facing major competition from the likes of cruisers from the brands like Jawa as well as Benelli, stepping up their game is the only choice left to remain ahead in the game. Some reports also suggest that the brand has recently filed patents for two new lightweight motorcycles under its wing namely Hunter and Sherpa. Though the former will be an entirely new motorcycle from the brand, Sherpa will be the resurrected name offered to the motorcycle which already made the rounds for the brand back in the 1960s.