So, very excited to be here at the official BSA launch preview of the new BSA collection of
motorcycles and I'm joined now by Ashish Joshi who is Director of BSA and first of all Ashish, thank
you for spending the time to talk to us. Thank you so much. Congratulations on bringing back
such an iconic brand such as BSA here and we're very excited to see what the future holds now,
can you just talk through briefly what we can expect to see in the new BSA range? The new BSA, I
think first off, we're very excited to bring that back. It's a very iconic, old British motorcycle
brand. The world's largest motorcycle company at one time. The most popular motorcycles in the world
as they would say. One in four motorcycles sold was a BSA and so many stories a brand of
varying stories from from everybody that we've met. So it's such a honor and a privilege to be able to
bring BSA motorcycles back to life. So we mentioned the heritage there of the BSA brand and how
important that is, what sort of role will that play in terms of the new range and how that's presented
to customers? So we're very focused on the history of the brand. We're very focused on
the motorcycles that we produce, which are going to be in that nostalgia heritage sort of genre
and we're looking to, from a design element point of view, we're looking to bring the BSA
DNA back onto the motorcycles. They of course will have modern technology, as is the need.
They will meet Euro 5 norms and possibly going forward the future norms as well. So they will have
all the modern bells and whistles on them but yet retain that design language, yet retain that core
BSA DNA on them. Brilliant, so as a classic bike enthusiast I should recognize some of those design
elements from the past in these modern bikes? Yes of course and not only just the design elements
also the character. The way the machine rides. The way the machine sounds. The way the machine behaves.
You will have some cues to the old BSAs. In terms of BSA the company then. How does that sit
within Classic Legends and the broader business that you work for? So Mahindra is 21 billion plus
dollar turnover group from India, automotive giants. Classic Legends is 60 percent equity owned by the
Mahindra Group. So we are effectively a Mahindra group company. From Classic Legends is ownership of
BSA Classic Legends is the 100 percent owners of BSA company. So it's not the BSA brand
alone. When we were out to make that acquisition, it was all about the company which could trace
its legacy back to 1903. So it was not just the brands. It was also about the company. So that is
the rich history of BSA company that we're proud to be a part of today.
That's excellent to hear. So it feels like this is a company now, or a brand, that is
in very safe hands and we can be excited to see what it has to offer moving forward and
within your heritage, or within your current setup of the company, is there a UK base as part
of that as well? Yes of course. These motorcycles eventually will start getting produced in the UK.
I would have said designed in the UK, engineered in the UK, produced in the UK but the last 20 months
of COVID has impacted that and we haven't been able to to finalise the production base for them
but going forward, as as COVID recedes and we are able to come back in we will definitely have
a production base and hey, we've got Birmingham in the name of the company. It's Birmingham Small Arms.
West Midlands is where we would love to set up our base and have them produced out here.
That's exciting to hear too and the current range is combustion engines. Is there an eye
on the future then to electric power moving forward also? Yeah we we started off a program
late last year where we've actually won a grant from the British government under
the Innovate UK program, through the advanced propulsion center and it's a match funded grant
where we've brought in 50 percent of the funding we've been funded 50 percent. We've put a consortium of
partners which includes Warwick Manufacturing Group. We have a motor manufacturer in there
we have a telematics supplier, we have a battery supplier. All of us put together is is developing
that electric product and cutting-edge British electric technology on that. When can we expect to
see the new range of BSA motorcycles in showrooms or available for customers to actually purchase?
The machines that we are previewing now and unveiling at the NEC in a couple of days time,
you will start seeing them coming in for selling season 2022, which is effectively spring 2022, is
will be in showrooms. Price wise what's their sort of place in the market against the current
lineup of say Royal Enfields or Moto Guzzis or Triumphs that we can see along similar genre. I
would say we we're still, we will declare pricing shortly. We are in the middleweight category
it's a 650cc single cylinder motorcycle and that's that's where we, it will be sensibly priced.