BSA, WITH INDIAN BACKING, IS ON ITS WAY BACK

The new Indian backed BSA, spawned by the old British marque, is now beginning to take shape and looks likely to be a 650cc Roadster perhaps to rival the Royal Enfield Interceptor. It was only last year that the British brand BSA, with its long tail stretching back in time to the wartime munitions factories of Birmingham, was taken over by Indian Mahindra's Classic Legends branch. The plan was to use a £4.3m UK government industry grant scheme to start manufacturing bikes in the UK in an attempt to revive the flagging motorcycle industry.

When the idea was born it was intended that BSA would head towards an electric future – another plus for the UK government trying to hit its green targets.

Now though it looks as though the first machines to roll off the new production line will be a conventional petrol powered 650cc roadster exclusively aimed at the UK market. Perhaps this new bike will be ready for EICMA 2021 in November, who knows.

Classic Legends have clearly done their homework and the great success of those popular bikes from Royal Enfield, the Interceptor and the Continental GT has been noted. This may be why they have chosen to debut with a 650 roadster.

Although BSA appear to be going against their initial remit with a combustion engine bike, they are still heading into electric power with a research and development facility being set up in Coventry, ready to work on the new electric engines of the future.

BSA and the Czech brands Jawa and potentially Yezdi, are all on Classic Legends books looking to be revived and got up to speed once more. It will be nice to see life in these old dogs yet so we are watching to see how things develop, hopefully they will be as successful as Royal Enfield has been.

What do you think, would you buy a new state of the art BSA 650 roadster? What are your memories of BSA from the olden days? How about an electric one even? Let us know at [email protected] or drop us a message on Facebook.