There aren’t many recent success stories in motorcycling to match Royal Enfield’s. In 2000, a 26-year-old named Siddhartha Lal was put in charge of the ailing company, which operates out of Chennai, India. Back then the company built about 50,000 examples a year of what were essentially ancient British bikes, and it did so to a fairly crude standard.

Last year it built about 800,000 motorcycles, with a quality unimaginable when Lal started. Now Royal Enfield has launched its first twin-cylinder models for well, eons, as part of an audacious move upmarket.