| This Royal Enfield Constellation, probably one of the best you can find, regarded to be the fastest and most powerful production motorbike of the “Fifties”. Being the predecessor of the mighty Interceptor she has been in production for only a relatively short period and therefore only few survived to date, less than Interceptors. Nearly as powerful as the Interceptor but much more reliable than her younger successor, it`s simply amazing how strong she runs you will become addicted to that pull and sound! Frame no. 8356 revealed that she has been dispatched to Pride & Clark London SW 9 on 4th of July 1959 in the colour “polychromatic-peacock-blue” & chrome , some 43 years later I found her living in Worthing, taxed and tested in the careful hands of her keeper Keith Crowley in September 2002. | “You will become addicted to that |
So here is a short description of my four-year Royal Enfield Constellation rebuild: | |
| First she has been taken apart completely every single part be it nut or bolt , washer or whatsoever, was carefully inspected , replaced by a new-old-stock / better than new part, fine-tuned and optimised, polished, or anodised, or chromed or painted.
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| The engine was tuned, optimised and rebuilt by a former Egli employee Sommer Motorrad Manufaktur , the lubrication-system was converted from dry sump to wet sump, with bigger oil pumps both pumps are feeding! one solely to the crank , the other one to cylinder-head. Modern high compression pistons run in 1st bore cylinder barrels, cylinder-heads now carry modern BMW valves, guides and seats, breathing through a single new Amal 389 carburettor with a 400-size main-jet , fired by an ultra-reliable Lucas SR-2 magneto-ignition rebuild with modern components. Primary drive is now a heavy-duty belt-drive with dry clutch, completely new electrics alternator / rectifier / regulator black-box. Petrol-tank and other parts have been chrome-plated or anodised by the most famous (? and expensive) plater of Germany, additionally the tank received an inner-conserve to last for ever. |
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Smiths speedometer rebuilt by an expert but still keeps the original indication, so you can see at what max. speed the needle dangled in former times. |
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| Now for the price of this Unique Beauty? It took me four years and more than 18.000 Euro / £12.000 The enthusiasm, experience and satisfaction is a very rewarding. Article by Klaus Lorenz |
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