In early 2026, BAAK and KS Motorcycles, a Royal Enfield dealership, came together around a single brief: to reinterpret a Royal Enfield Shotgun 650 and represent France at the Busted Knuckles Build Off 2026, the international build competition created by Royal Enfield.
The Shotgun 650 offered solid raw material: a clean architecture, a frank line, the ability to carry a bold reinterpretation without losing any of its mechanical coherence. The workshop approached it as a rolling design object, with a single direction — to draw a machine that holds together from the first sketch to the last part.
A project born between two workshops
What sets this project apart is the way it was carried. After choosing BAAK as its build workshop, KS Motorcycles shaped the machine’s identity and line with us.
The work then took form in the BAAK workshop in Rillieux-la-Pape, near Lyon. Fenders, side covers, engine guard, exhaust line, rear mudguard: every part that shapes the Shotgun’s silhouette was drawn, engineered and made on site. Paint, suspension and braking were entrusted to our network of local craftsmen, long-standing partners.
This web of skills — manufacturer, dealer and workshop — is what gave a Royal Enfield where every detail answers an intention.
Yellow, a colour that asserts the machine
The Shotgun is built on a dark base: black tones, raw materials, taut lines. It was missing a vivid element to seat its presence.
After several trials, yellow came through. A shade that belongs to the Royal Enfield world, but also carries a 1970s influence — the era when machines asserted their character through colour. We looked for that frank, luminous yellow that contrasts with the dark line and makes the Shotgun recognisable at first glance.
From Bike Shed London to the next build
The BAAK x KS Motorcycles Shotgun 650 was unveiled on 5 May at the KS Motorcycles dealership, before heading to the Bike Shed Moto Show in London, 22–24 May 2026, for the Busted Knuckles Build Off finals.
Seeing visitors react gave full meaning to those six months of work: the interest, the conversations, the questions about how it was made and the choices behind it.
This Shotgun 650 says what BAAK shapes every day — machines thought through as a whole, where every part serves the line and the character. For a complete build or a few parts that assert your machine’s silhouette, the workshop is open to every project.