Pierre Terblanche, who is hailed as one of the best motorcycle designers of the modern generation, has recently joined Royal Enfield. Originally from South Africa, Pierre had almost 10 years of experience at Cagiva, the Italian biking conglomerate. There he was under the tutelage of the legendary Massimo Tamburini, who is often termed as the person behind the renaissance of MV Augusta.
Once Ducati was taken over by the Texas Pacific Group, the South African decided to match his feet with the brand and went to the United States of America. What followed soon was Pierre’s contribution to designing some of the most renowned bikes of Ducati like Multistrada, SportClassic, 749/999 and the Hypermotard sports bikes. Though there were quite some mixed speculations about the design and development of the 74/999 bikes, Pierre had an illustrious stint at Ducati over the years.
However, he quit Ducati soon after stating that his motto in life was to be a motorcycle designer, unlike the job profile in Ducati, where he had to work as a manager. Piaggio let him work for their famed Moto Guzzi line-up, where he got the chance to work alongside is former colleague Miguel Angel Galuzzi, who was famed as the designer of Ducati Monster.
After spending some time at the Piaggio, Terblanche worked for a short period at the recently revived Norton Motorcycle Company. Soon after, he went on to join the Confederate Motors in the United States of America as the head of Product Development. There he was behind the release of the X132 Hellcat Speedster, which led to instant global fame.
Royal Enfield has been famous in India and abroad for its power performance bikes. It is undoubtedly, totally, a new era for the brand with Pierre headlining the department of design. Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director and CEO of Eicher Motors Limited stated, “I am very excited that Pierre Terblanche has recently joined our team; he is one of the most prolific industrial designers for motorcycles, and is best known for having created some extra-ordinary motorcycles as the head of design for Ducati for over a decade.”
All eyes turn towards Royal Enfield and its star designer now and waiting eagerly for some great collaborative efforts of the two.
