On celluloid and in literature, we have seen stories structured around anthropomorphism. Animals masterminding and executing an act of vendetta is a popular theme. In fact, there have been bolder variations where cars have executed personal and social judgement. Isn’t the Ajay Devgn-starrer Taarzan: The Wonder Car loosely based on this idea? Not that I am a big fan of such tales, but I’d like to see a past event through the prism of anthropomorphism. This episode lends itself to it.
Here goes
Three youngsters squashed in its saddle, the motorcycle squealed in protest, but pulled on, carrying its tormentors down a pitted road. The bike was a hapless Explorer CS50. Two of them were thin as a rake. With his massive girth, the third more than made up for these two. So, this poor, underpowered machine was forced to carry a mountain of flesh. I was one of the three. For this act of cruelty, two of us have received our just deserts. The other one probably has — it’s just that he left for the United States a few years later and we’ve not heard from him ever since.
A few days after that pain-inflicting ride, the bike got stolen. So, that was a blow to the one who owned and rode the bike that day. Persisting with the anthropomorphic theme, the bike was not stolen, but hid itself.
TAMBARAM, 25/04/2010:The super slow 22cc Enfield Mofa mini moped has diehard fans such as R.Ramaprasad.It was a bike that could race only with cycles of the garden variety.As this moped easily managed to give 90 km to a litre.Mofa did not require to be licensed by a road transport officer.A view of a 1980s Rayal Enfield Mofa. Photo A.Muralitharan
And, I was cursed that I would never see an Explorer again. I had taken a shine to the Explorer CS50 because it was compact, but had the look of a regular bike. For a 50cc, three-speed machine, it offered a decent ride. It had been designed to have tyres that are reasonably wide. Besides these, the mental snapshot of the Explorer CS50 carrying three of us, with a large heart, had stayed with me. However, the bike had gone out of production and I couldn’t see any on the road. When I was looking to buy one in the pre-owned, two-wheeler market in the mid-1990s at Bells Road, in Chennai, and other places, my efforts weren’t successful.
It was a result of those times — and, of course, the curse. The Explorer CS50 couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. In the 1980s, higher-powered vehicles with advanced technology were becoming more affordable, and low-powered machines, including some iconic mopeds, were being swept into the background. Indian motorcycle companies and even a cycle major were getting into significant, game-changing partnerships with Japanese automobile majors. Here are those partnerships: Escorts-Yamaha, TVS-Suzuki, Bajaj-Kawasaki and Hero-Honda. The competition was fierce and exciting to watch. What is popularly known as the ‘RX versus RTZ’ wars (they were between Yamaha RX and Kawasaki RTZ models) is etched in my mind, because in the early 1990s, I got a Kawasaki KB100 RTZ.
As the Indian motorcycle enthusiast was caught up with these exciting developments, some of the now-evidently-wonderful low-powered machines of those times did not receive the attention they deserved. So, a considerable number of them went to the scrap market, as owners failed to see they would be rare in the future. Besides the Explorer CS50, two other Enfield India products, the 22-cc micro-moped Mofa and the 50cc step-through motorcycle Silver Plus, were also victims of this short-sightedness.
Through these machines, Enfield India was bringing in European technology. Explorer CS50 and Silver Plus were based on Zundapp KS50 and Zundapp ZS/ZX 50 from Germany’s Zundapp, and Mofa bore the design imprint of the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Morbidelli.
Mofa — short for moving faster — couldn’t have been more inappropriately named. If the tortoise had raced against the Mofa and not the hare, it could have taken a nap and still won — that’s hyperbole, but you get the point.
Mofa’s strength lay elsewhere. It was fitted with an engine used for sprayers — that might have been disruptive innovation in those times. Just the look of the Mofa is enough to get you. It harks back to the days when mopeds looked more like bicycles: the pint-sized fuel tank is lodged — rather, hidden — in the down tube.
Postscript
From online posts, I notice an interest in these machines. There are people who have them and are working on seeing them restored. Over the years, I have met a couple of motoring enthusiasts who have found the Mofa and cherish it. But the ‘curse’ over the Explorer CS50 continued until recently. It was broken the other day when I got to meet Swadhish Bharathi, a 25-year-old dentist, and also his Explorer CS50. It’s heartening to learn that someone from this generation is preserving a memory of mine.
