A snap from back in the day of Royal Enfield's Constellation model. The picture is marked on the reverse '1958'. This was the first year of the Constellation and at this time it was the biggest and most powerful Brit bike you could buy. The 692cc engine was bigger than rival marque's 650cc offerings and the 52bhp on tap was a significant amount of power for the time - to put in to context this was 7 horses more than the Rapide from now defunct Vincent but 3 less than a Black Shadow.
Note the remote float chamber of the TT carb fitted to the bike, early Constellations were fitted with racing carbs, later replaced by twin monoblocs.
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| 1958 Royal Enfield Constellation. |
when you rode one very fast, your eyeballs vibrated out.
ReplyDeleteNever tried one but I guess there was some serious payback for all that power from a rigidly mounted parallel twin with no balance shaft...
DeleteI guess it would be comparable to a Norton Atlas?
No, they were really bad, it did not get really sorted until the Interceptor. great looking bike, and fast, very few of the cafe racer lads of the era rode them as far as I can remember.
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