Royal Enfield Thunderbird

The Royal Enfield Thunderbird is a cruiser style motorcycle produced by Royal Enfield Motors in India. It was first introduced in the year 2002 with a 350 cc AVL lean burn engine and five-speed gearbox. The AVL engine was first introduced in the year 2000. AVL stands for Anstalt für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen List (German for "Institute for Combustion Engines"), an Austrian-based automotive consulting firm as well as an independent research institute. The Royal Enfield Thunderbird is known as Royal Enfield Rumbler in export markets. In 2009, the AVL semi-unit engine was replaced with the new 346 cc unit construction engine (UCE). The bike was renamed Thunderbird Twinspark owing to the twin sparkplugs in the UCE. Other parts have seen only minimal changes from the original Thunderbird. The final drive chain is moved to the right side and it is the most obvious change from the old model apart from the new engine.

Royal Enfield Thunderbird 500
Royal Enfield Thunderbird
ManufacturerRoyal Enfield
Parent companyEicher Motors
Production2002 – present

2002 - 2009 AVL engine

2009 - present UCE engine
ClassCruiser
Engine499 cc, single cylinder, 4-stroke, OHV, SI Engine
Ignition typeDigital dual spark ignition, Transistor Controlled Ignition(TCI) system
Transmission5-speed Constant Mesh
BrakesFront - 280 mm Ventilated disc, 2-piston calliper; Rear - 240 mm Ventilated disc, single piston caliper
Wheelbase1,370 mm (54 in)

Thunderbird 350 and 500
Royal Enfield Thunderbird UCE First Model

In October 2012, Royal Enfield launched the new 350 cc and 500 cc variants of the Thunderbird with a facelift.[1][2] It features front and rear disc brakes, a 20 L (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal) teardrop shaped fuel tank, a split seat, digital speedometer console and fuel gauge, projector headlamps, LED tail lights and various cosmetic improvements over the 350 cc. Thunderbird 500 gets fuel injection system while Thunderbird 350 operates on carburetor.Later Thunderbird 500 cc is now discontinued.

In 2018, another model was released named Thunderbird X in 350 and 500 cc with included ABS(Anti-Lock Braking System) .[3]

References
  1. "Royal Enfield launches next-generation Thunderbird cruiser motorcycles". The Economic Times. 11 October 2012.
  2. Varun Sinha (15 January 2014). "Royal Enfield's success boosts Eicher Motors fortunes". NDTV.
  3. "Royal Enfield Thunderbird X launched, starting at Rs 1.57 lakh". The Times of India. Retrieved 28 February 2018.


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