Meet the world’s most enduring product
Companies can survive for aeons, but their products are usually ephemeral. Apple may be the world’s most valuable business, yet the Apple II computer and the original Mac that provided the early foundation of its success live in museums, if at all. Apple’s smartphone rival, Samsung, began by selling noodles. Ford’s latest F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck shares little with the Model T except for four wheels. The dictum “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” carries little weight in a world of evolving technologies, business models and consumer tastes.
Unless, that is, you are Royal Enfield. In 1932 the motorcycle-maker, then based in Britain, launched the Bullet. Ninety-one years later the company, in Indian hands since 1994, has unveiled the latest version of the iconic two-wheeler. It looks virtually identical to the original.
Changes have, the company insists, been made to the engine (which boasts just two-thirds of the original’s horsepower), the chassis and the seat. Yet besides a missing kick-start (which has provoked some grumbling from fans) and an added fuel gauge (which has elicited no comments), these are unnoticeable. Features common on other 21st-century motorbikes, like tachometers or temperature gauges—to say nothing of computer-assisted ride modes for different conditions—are absent. The ride and, as one YouTuber put it, “the sweet crunch sound of exhaust”, are probably much the same as they would have been in the 1930s.
2023-09-07 09:20:20
Original from www.economist.com
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