Newcomer to the motorcycle manufacturing game Herald Motorcycles has introduced the Brute 500. The UK marque, founded in 2010, started out by sourcing retro-looking bikes from China, importing them, and then tweaking them at their factory in Cambridgeshire before putting them in a showroom.

First Chinese, Now British

The Herald lineup thus far included displacements of 125, 250 and 400 (all single-cylinder). The newest addition, the Brute 500, boasts the largest engine yet, and is the most manufactured in the UK of the bunch. Herald still sources the engine and several other components (like the tank and plastics) from a factory in China, but the bike is built in the UK. The British manufacturing facility rolls its own swingarms, triple tree, axles, swingarms and frame castings. Herald sources some parts, like the front brakes and wheels, from Racetek.

Specs

The bike’s frame cradles that 449cc four-stroke single, which puts nealy 43hp to the rear wheel by way of a six-speed gearbox and a chain final drive. Its 32.5” seat height (835mm) is less intimidating when you consider that the bike weighs in at not-quite 320lbs (145kg). Slowing the bike is a four-pot single-disc radial brake up front, and a single-pot caliper out back.

Manufactured in the UK

As a marque, Herald’s main driver is to produce a British-designed, and British-manufactured motorcycle. The Brute is their current flagship. The Herald website boasts about how the Brute is “first in-house designed, engineered, and manufactured motorcycle built from the ground up in the UK.” Watch the launch video and you’ll see how the team at Herald is so proud of their efforts.

The point of this bike is that it’s a motorcycle harkening back to the roots of riding. The marketing keeps describing the bike as “raw,” which is what you get when you build a bike without all the comfort components we see so often on motorcycles these days. No ESA or ABS, no CANbus, just an engine, a gas tank, a seat and wheels. You’d think that would make the bike pretty cheap, but all the in-house build parts keep the bike from being a total cheapo production-line job.

Pricing and Availability

You can pre-order the bike with a deposit on the Herald website. The posted retail price is currently £6950 (about $8200 USD). Before you do that, though, note that the bike is currently available in the UK. There are also dealers in Spain, Sweden, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and North Macedonia. There’s also a single dealer on the island of Malta. And that’s it. Perhaps eventually the rest of the world will show enough interest to get a whack before ICE bikes go away completely.