The BSA Goldstar that you’ve launched in the UK first and now in India is clearly a ‘big bike’ lifestyle product. How does this product work?

The top 5 per cent of the strata (in India) is the most developed country. In India, the top 1 per cent of the GDP is more than anywhere in the world. The next 5 per cent you can call Singapore, the next 5 per cent is Poland and Mexico put together, the next 5 per cent is the whole of Europe put together. That is India for you.

Two, infrastructure is improving.

Three, the category of bikes we are launching, there are people who know how to ride that and people who know how to love that. To my mind, there is nothing called ‘big bike’. In fact, what we call ‘big bike’ is a medium-category bike there (in the UK). But in India today, these are very approachable bikes. People are not getting scared either from a price point or cc or size. The question earlier used to be of affordability. But that is also gone.

Are you planning at some point to extend the BSA brand downwards with a marquee bike at the top of the line-up since you have smaller bikes in the Jawa range?

No. A brand is not a sticker. You cannot take it off and put it on any bike. It has to have that character. In terms of looks.... And even if the engines are, hypothetically, the same, they are tuned completely differently. They’ll have different profiles, different pistons, different camshafts, different ECU maps, and thus the speeds will be different. Because the speeds will be different, braking will be different. So suspension will be different. So it is not linear. A 650cc here (BSA) and a 650cc there (Jawa) are not the same. Not at all. There is a remarkable difference in the motorcycles. If I ever launch a 650 scrambler it will behave like a scrambler even though it might share the basics of this engine.

How do you change the basic character of an engine to a platform for say, both a cruiser as well as a scrambler?

So these are not the good old times when there is a carburettor, there’s a flywheel, there’s a chain and so on. Today, it’s all electronics. You can change the character of the engine dramatically. But it’s not just the engine, it is the powertrain, the whole aggregation. So, when I am going to launch a similar 300cc or a 600cc in one brand to another brand and one category to another category, it is our way of saying that we are sharing a platform, but the bikes are different, and the engine characteristics are also different. One good example is the Jawa 350 and the Jawa 42 FJ. They both have the Alpha 2 engine. The 350 has 22bhp and 28Nm, while the 42FJ it is 29bhp and 29Nm. Can you imagine? If you go back to old times, it was not like they were all the same. The market was segmented back then, the market is segmented now. We need to create that market.

You call yourself Classic Legends. To me it means brands with some sort of heritage. Do you think that the Yezdi is as classic as the Jawa and it is as classic as the BSA?

This is a real estate. The real estate we are playing on is your mind. So, to the mind of a UK customer, a Jawa is nothing. For them, the classic is BSA. For Czech, the classic is Jawa, not Yezdi, not BSA. In India, you have Jawa and Yezdi, which are classics. It started with Jawa, became Yezdi. So, you have to be true to that brand. You can’t buy authenticity, right? You know our friends in China, they bought so many brands. So, it’s not that straightforward. And also remember, just because it is old it is not necessarily nostalgic. You have to be nostalgic in that country.

‘British Iron’, as these motorcycles are called, have a cache and there have been efforts to revive them, Vincent, etc., in the bigger engine categories...

Because they did not have smaller engines... Motorcycle brands and car brands have been available forever. You think I’m some super smart guy who picked up these three brands and nobody looked at them earlier? I’m not that smart. So, who buys? Automotive companies. Vendors, dealers, advertising, it’s not a joke. Those that have a brand already don’t buy. For a non-automotive company, it is not easy. So, we were lucky that we got the brands. We got the support of the Mahindra who had the factory and the knowledge. We had the capital. Very rarely does this trinity happen. That’s why this is special.

You said you have an electric ready...

We started developing the ICE (internal combustion engine) and electric together. Electric just happened faster, it’s easier. Electric happened in the UK. ICE happened all over the world, including India. As a challenger you need to be a little crazy. So we developed three engines. Electric we got the support of the UK government. So the development centre for it came up in Coventry in the UK. So, it (an electric bike) is ready, but just because it’s ready we cannot launch a product.

As a lifestyle brand, how are you creating communities?

First of all, remember how lucky we are. When we launched Jawa, we had 50 clubs all across the country. And these guys were Jawa lovers already. So we had a head start. Let me tell you a secret. Before we launched, it takes two-three years to develop the bike, in that time I actually went to MRF to say ‘Make old tyres’. I actually made parts for the old bikes to move them from the garages and start running, old Jawas and Yezdis. Parts were not available. We actually made those parts. It was all expense to me. That’s how you create communities and brands. So, 10,000 motorcycles came on the road even before I launched. The ones that were lying in the garages. So, those communities became vibrant. So, it was a head start!