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Royal Enfield's heritage can be traced back to Victorian England, but the firm is now primarily based in India.

The company is part of the Eicher Motors Group, the truck firm founded by Vikram Lal, the father of present Royal Enfield CEO, Siddhartha Lal.

The last British-built Royal Enfield rolled off the lines in 1967, with production being taken over by the Indian subsidiary.

Today, all Royal Enfields are built in Chennai, India.

But the formerly very British marque is returning to the UK - after a fashion. The firm opened a new technology centre in Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire last year, with ambitions of designing the next generation of Royal Enfields.

The company has enjoyed huge success in India, with sales rising from 32,000 in 2007 to nearly 800,000 a decade later.

Leceistershire is already home to two major motorcycle firms - Norton and Triumph, the latter of which produces 50,000 bikes annually, of which 85 per cent are exported.

As Indian as Royal Enfield now is, the firm's top brass recognises the talent base in the UK's Midlands, and wants to harness it to produce new bikes that UK and European buyers want.

Speaking to the Leicester Mercury, Royal Enfield’s head of product development, Simon Warburton, said: “I’ve been a motorcycle enthusiast since I was too young to remember and a rider since I was 10 years old.

“Establishing the UK Technology Centre and growing from just five of us in January 2015 in a small rented office in Leicester to our current numbers and facilities has been an extraordinary experience and one that I recognise I am extremely fortunate to have had.

“We’re still growing fast, of course, so the experience continues.”

So while production of Royal Enfields is unlikely to return to the UK, at least crucial design work will be done here - more than 100 years after the first Royal Enfield was built in the Midlands.