Some screamed style. Some were brutally uiet. Cocooned in a partan lawn, a cluster f customised Royal Enfield bikes soaked in the stares as staff of Oregonbased advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), hung around, with chilled Budweisers in hand.

A strong drama was unfolding in W+K's office premises in Saket in the capital. The tired balmy evening was the first in a series where classic motorcycle maker Royal Enfield, in collaboration with its creative agency W+K, launched an exhibition of motorcycle art, christened, The Art of Motorcycling.

They didn't forget the Zen too. Tucked away in a glass-enclosed gallery, outof-the-box photographs of Royal Enfield motorcycles by Bharat Sikka and digital art by graphic designer Prasad Raghavan were on display.

Designer t-shirts with psychedelic themes, merchandise such as stickers and mugs, and helmets by IndoFrench premium brand GOACHIC were also being flaunted. V Sunil, executive creative director of W+K Delhi, said the show was meant to introduce leisure motorcycling to the public.

“We also want to show them that art is affordable, cool and hip.“

He seems to have a point because art and automobiles go back a long way. And it's not only about owners of Harley-Davidson custom painting their bikes or a BMW Z4 drifting like crazy on a giant white canvas with paint on its wheels. On any of the many Indian highways, every over-laden truck worth its miles has uncomplicated yet beautiful handmade paintings on its body.

Some call it crude customisation. But it works. And Sunil seems to have made a point.

Royal Enfield is the maker of the oldest motorcycle in the world. The bike has a cult following in India, where it's fondly called the Bullet. “Every Royal Enfield owner tinkers with his bike.

Some change the handlebars, some paint it, and some replace the exhaust pipe to modify the thump. In short, minor modifications such as these endow the bike with a unique character. And we think it's art,“ Sunil said.

Art apart, the exhibition also revealed the Royal Enfield's intention to beef up its cult brand image.

Most of the exhibits stressed on the bike maker's tagline “trip“. The digital work b Prasad Raghavan even had `trippy' undertones with one of them showing a biker in a surreal landscape with pink overgrown mushrooms as in Alice in Wonderland. Incidentally, all of them were on sale in the form of posters that came for Rs 1,000 each.

The helmets by GOACHIC, with a starting price of Rs 28,000, showed off hand-painted scenes from Hindu mythology.

When asked about the steep price, Sunil mentioned that people who spend a few lakh of rupees on customising a bike would not perhaps mind spending a few thousands on a designer helmet.

Well, art has its price. But the show had a catch. Other than the helmets, some stickers and a few t-shirts, most of the works of art on display were a result of Sunil's ongoing work for Royal Enfield. For instance, the photographs by Sikka were the ones that the company used in its print campaign a couple of years ago.

In hindsight, the exhibition had bits and pieces of everything that Royal Enfield had tried to use in its merchandising and advertising efforts over the years, much like the nuts and bolts of its iconic 350cc singlecylinder iron cast mill. The dust had been wiped off admirably. What was revealed was the soul of a brand that did not lose its sheen over the decades. In hindsight, it was a trip into history.