The fabulous Fantabulus

Story: Nikhil Raghavan

If there ever was an ugly duckling from the Royal Enfield stable, it was the Fantabulus. When the contraption was unleashed on the unsuspecting public in the late 60’s, scooterists and motorcyclists alike did double and triple takes, scratched their heads and wondered – is it a bike? Is it a scooter? Close your eyes and it sounded like a bike. Open you eyes and…well…it looked like a steel trunk on two wheels!

A couple of years ago, I was dead keen on tracking one of these machines. Not much info was available on the Net (strangely) on the Fantabulus. Folks at Enfield had no clue either.

Then, out of the blue I got this call from a Sarangan, a bike collector (especially of 350 cc bikes – more of him in later issues), informing me that he had just procured a 1970 (1971 registered) model Fantabulus. So, off I went to his house to check out the contraption, which many moons ago I had struggled to ride – and, I’ll tell you why.

The Fantabulus is built like a scooter, but uses a Villiers 2 stroke, single cylinder, fan cooled engine. Being from the Enfield household, the gears are on the wrong side…er…I mean, on the right side er…never mind. Therefore, the floor board-cum-foot rest had two pedals protruding from it. For engaging the first gear, you stomped the forward pedal down. For the remaining three gears, the rear pedal was stomped down in sequence. The brake pedal was on the left foot – another pedal to stomp down! The clutch was on the left handle and the front brake on the right, thank god! Atleast here, the norm was maintained.

The 1970 model came with a kick starter on the right hand side and did not have an ignition switch. If you wanted to start the engine, just kick start. There was an engine kill switch, though.

The 175cc scooter was chain driven and its suspension consisted of a dual link, pivoted fork with hydraulic dampers in front (very similar to the Rajdoot bikes) and a single swing arm pivoted fork with large hydraulic damper at the back. The exhaust had twin pipes emanating from the silencer box. The ignition was through a Villiers Magneto with built-in ignition coil – no points! The 15.2cm dia headlamp with visor fitted is a 6V direct lighting system. The manual says that fuel consumption was 38.5 km/litre approx! The fuel tank had a capacity of 8 litres with another 1 litre plus in reserve.

The Fantabulus at hand was originally owned by Shamrao Baparao Jadhav in Kolhapur. Now 68 years old, Shamrao had maintained the scooter in almost mint condition. Almost everything was in original condition – he had even repainted the body in the original white – a tad pale, though.

The RC book showed that Shamrao had paid an annual tax of Rs. 48 in 1971. He had given Sarangan a photograph of himself with his 4-year-old son standing on the scooter, taken in 1975. Today, the son has a daughter of the same age!

Says Sarangan on how he spotted the scooter and managed to buy it. “I came to know through certain sources which I can’t disclose, about the Fantabulus at Kolhapur. I managed to track the owner after a lot of effort and started my subdued badgering. Shamrao was quite reluctant to sell it to a stranger. He probably wanted the company, Enfield, to buy it back so that they could preserve it for posterity, or to a museum. Considering that he had taken so much care and had not even allowed his son to ride it all these years, I knew it would be difficult to persuade him. But, fortunately, neither the company nor any museum was forthcoming to his expectations; this solved half my problems.

I then had to convince him that I was indeed a bike collector and that I had seven Enfield bikes at hand. I had to impress upon him that I was not out to make money out of the transaction. After six months of telephonic conversations (I must have blown close to 5Kon telephone bills!), I got a slight nod from him – he would consider….! The next thing I did was to hop, skip and jump to Kolhapur and land on his doorstep.

A surprised Shamrao still hummed and hawed and was not yet convinced why he should sell it in the first place. I told him, ‘listen, if I was not that crazy about old bikes and scooters (this is my first scooter), why would I spend time, money and energy to be in Kolhapur? He eased a bit, allowed me to inspect and ride the scooter and go through the documents. Imagine, he had the original RC, the receipt for an installment he paid, the original maintenance manual….et al.

The speedometer was not tampered at all and read 51000 kms. Shamrao, a building contractor, had done extensive riding on the Fantabulus. He remembered a trip he made from Kolhapur to Goa when he did an average of 70 kmph, without a murmur from the scooter.”

Transaction done, papers exchanged and formalities completed, Sarangan did not stay a day longer at Kolhapur, lest Shamrao changed his mind. The Fantabulus was lovingly packed and transported by train all the way to Chennai. It now sits proudly parked amidst his collection of Bullets, Fury 175, Jawa 350, Thunderbird and Yamaha RD 350.

Sarangan, an aviation maintenance engineer dabbles in hi-tech aircraft during his official working hours and when he is not taking care of airplanes, finds himself comfortable astride his stable of powerful bikes.

Amidst the several 350cc bikes he owns, Sarangan considers the Fantabulus his prized catch, for he firmly believes that there are only a very few around in the country.

END