During the 1971 Indo-Pak War, the INS Vikrant shot into prominence as the country’s first aircraft carrier.
And now, the legacy of the warship is set to carry on in the form of Bajaj’s new bike ‘V’ – the motorcycle is made using metal from the carrier.
INS Vikrant was commissioned as the first aircraft carrier of Indian Navy in 1961. After years of distinguished service, it was decommissioned in January 1997 and served as a museum till 2012.
In November 2014, the aircraft carrier was dismantled and sold as scrap metal.
Bajaj Auto purchased the Vikrant metal and processed it to be a part of its new brand which will be unveiled on 1 February.
The ship’s name was taken from the Sanskrit word Vikranta, which means “stepping beyond”.
It all sounds good and interesting but there is only a finite amount of scrap metal that could have been obtained from the INS Vikrant. Hence, only a limited number of bikes can be made.
So the question on our mind is – will there be a limited edition Bajaj coming up?
The way around this could be coming up with an alloy that has Vikrant’s metal in it, or a really small bike (it doesn’t really look huge either in the teaser). Both these options fail to do justice to Vikrant’s history.
What’ll the end product be like? We have to wait till 1 February to find out.
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