ABOUT US
We aim to offer a unique hand built machine to a niche market. By offering the 1000cc Carberry V-twin motorcycles and stand-alone engines.
Dream Engines and Manufacturers{DEM} is a company formed by Jaspreet Singh Bhatia of India and Paul Carberry from Australia who are now in the process of resurrecting the famous Carberry Motorcycle which had ceased production in Australia in 2011. The bikes from the short production run in Australia still in use and the relentless testing of the prototype proved them to be a reliable and popular machine. The Carberry V- twin attained world popularity and praise from the media with journalists delighted with its smooth low down torque, light handling, minimal vibration and deep exhaust note.
The engine inherits the long 90mm stroke and uses the UCE cylinder heads and 5 speed gearbox. The frame is a new [not modified] high strength frame made from cold drawn tube and the primary drive is upgraded with 7 plate clutch and high strenght chain. The Carberry is also known as the Double Barrel as it requires two bullets and fires two barrels!
The engine is inherently designed for reliability and longevity and our focus is to supply a quality product through quality workmanship and to give the owner the ultimate experience.
After all it’s all about the dream, ours and yours!
HISTORY
Paul Carberry had this idea of combining two British singles since his teens, but as his engineering skills steadily grew the British singles were fading away and factories closing down, to do this exercise would only be an expensive one off machine with second hand parts, not commercially viable, to pay the bills whilst doing what he loved was the objective. Through the seventies and eighties Paul kept hearing rumours that India was still producing the R E bullet 350 and 500 which excited him somewhat but there were only rumours no hard evidence and no google search back then. It was not until the early nineties that he saw one at a classic bike meeting, this was an aw-inspiring moment for Paul it was like seeing a long lost lover he thought was dead over 20 years ago, the rumours were true, there it was with all its chrome and hand painted pin striping, a brand new 1950s British bike; long thought to be extinct! India the land of traditional people who for a long time were largely indifferent to the outside world and it`s trendy and fast moving throwaway society, they embraced this piece of England’s history, a steed of steel not plastic.
By the late nineties Paul had settled in Jakarta Indonesia and for a while; buying and selling 1940s Harleys, then the market changed and he was looking for something new “or should I say old” he remembers the bullet; and heads off to India to learn as much as he can about these bikes. After setting up shop in Jakarta and dealing with an incredible amount of red tape to have them legal on the road He buys 5 bikes and brings them back to sell with the idea to start with selling singles then convert to twins when ready; a decision he was to later regret. With corruption, time delays, 200% tax`s and Indonesia’s inability to
understand this mid-sized relic and after heavy loses Paul realizes this is not the place to do it, although Paul loved Indonesia it is a tough place to do business.
Back in Australia the passion doesn`t go away, but wearing financial loses Paul no longer has his workshop; nor his house for that matter. Pauls engineering ability had grown over the years but there were things like gear cutting and newer technology CNC machining that weren’t fully in his grasp so he looked up an old acquaintance from the Melbourne Laverda club Ian Drysdale who had already done a V8 from 2 Yamaha’s. So with the last of his funds Paul hires Ian’s technical expertise and the V twin finally moves from a teenage dream to reality, with Paul now in his mid 40s.
The design was conceived by the two men while Ian masterfully did 2D drawings; doing the difficult task of setting up the gear train and a mass of oil galleries feeding oil throughout the engine. Castings were made and Ian began the machining, Paul modified the frame to fit the engine, after about 3 years including some delays for finance the engine was married to the frame. Largely that was Ian’s job done and it was now up to Paul to refine it, first with the breathing problems; oil didn’t like staying in the engine so after working through that the starter motor which was an unusual design that it engages directly to a ring gear on the crankshaft, sealing the oil from entering the starter was a bit of a challenge.
The then CEO of R E Siddhartha Lal upon visiting Australia requested to see the bike; which was a couple of weeks short of firing up; but he kept interest in the project and later sent out his head engineer and head of production for assessment, to be entwined with this classic brand and its manufacturer in such a way was far beyond Pauls teenage dream. Talks and negotiations carried on for many months but sadly went nowhere.
The prototype was used as an everyday transport sometimes his only transport, once the teething problems were sorted out it proved to be reliable transport for many tens of thousands of kilometres and still going. Some years later a group of bullet enthusiasts decided to finance the project for production in Australia in the mountains outside of Melbourne.
The prototype was stripped down for checking and copying, the internals were in good shape but there improvements Paul wanted to make as upgrades and refinements.
Doing a production run is somewhat different to building a prototype and took a lot of setting up and setup costs, also they had to pass Australian design regulations which involved one year of red tape to satisfy the authorities to be legal on the road. The hand built machines were timely to build and pricey but there were enough people that appreciated these bikes and were prepared to buy them quicker than Paul could build them. Two years on and bikes are rolling out of the factory with their smiley faced customers there to receive them, they loved them and so did the motorcycle media. About this time communications with the R E factory were rekindled to the point that they sent a bike over to be converted to a V twin and sent back to India; with the idea that a deal could be struck up and produce the Carberry design at the factory in Chennai. Once again negotiations began but went nowhere, it was soon becoming apparent that they were favouring an overhead cam parallel twin for some reason.
Back in Australia the small scale manufacture of the V twin was still viable to a boutique market and although the return of investment was on the horizon, the investors decided to permanently shut down production anyway; rejecting all options, maybe they were only hunting for the big fish. It was the end of an era and Paul moved on; with disappointment but also great sense of accomplishment for having hand built 13 machines including one prototype and 2 engines.
Back on the shelf again! Although there was one more bike “number 14” an experimental motorcycle which would have been left to rot back at the now redundant factory, as the customer had already invested in this bike Paul felt obligated to take it with him and finish it. The concept of this bike was that the customer wanted a high powered version of the V twin and also the company could benefit from the R&D and injecting the technology into the production bikes. The engine was to have: - twin plug ignition, hi-comp pistons, fury big valve heads, fuel injection, titanium con rods, a Motec engine management system, 7 plate hydraulic clutch and hot cams; wow! that was a mouthful! But this would be too much for a modified Bullet frame, something more was required; something more modernish, stronger, classical lines, spoked wheels, good brakes and handling. So a 1995 Triumph thunderbird was selected, but it was not a simple fix, the V configuration was longer than the parallel triple that used to live there and to stretch a frame for a one of custom would make it difficult for road legal so Paul decided to shorten the engine, what! Nobody shortens an engine for a fit up do they! Apparently so. 22mm was taken of the cylinders and the internals which sounds very easy if you say it quickly!
4 years after the last production bike; requests still came streaming in, it wasn`t just about Pauls passion anymore, the world had a taste and wasn’t letting go! It was now their passion, this made it difficult to keep it on the shelf, then eventually a connection was made with Jaspreet Singh Bhatia a business man from the Durg district In India who has big interest in large motorcycles had interest to produce them there, so back to India; but this time a deal was made and the two men formed the company Dream Engines and Modifications [DEM] and Paul and his wife relocated to Durg early 2016; and production began!