It was the forward looking

Bauhaus Design School that established pure geometric forms as its underlying principle, leaving behind a legacy of modernisation that endures to this day.

As its defining characteristic, the adoption of a minimalist design aesthetic set a precedent and was a radical departure from established norms, shunning decoration in favour of pure sculptural forms.

Although a stark, even linear approach to aesthetic design is now nothing new, it still has the power to create an impact and still cuts a striking figure alongside more elaborate and laboured outpourings.

In automotive there may be a handful of principles that determine the overall form and componentry present on a vehicle.

Inescapable is physics, aspirational is performance but as another 20th century icon dictated, there's no escaping the bottom line and in manufacturing that means a need to establish and maintain a lean operational footprint.

Industrialist Henry Ford might have found a kindred spirit in Bauhaus architect and contemporary, Mies Van Der Rohe.

"Less is more"
Mies Van Der Rohe

1886-1969

The industrial revolution may have begun in England some decades before Ford's birth, but it was efforts during Ford's time and tenureship and not without the influence of two world wars that saw industrial output increase and production methods refined.

This new attention to optimised industrial output and its systemised and uniform processes and outcomes had an impact on the architectural movements and their leading figures at the time. Not just in the case of laying out the plans for a factory floor, but in constructing layouts for modern private residences and large-scale apartment buildings.

Ford built cars that were functional in the extreme and he built them quickly on the back of demand he in part created by popularising the automobile as a mass market product, striving to make it available to the greatest possible number of consumers and by that he made simple cars that lasted and he made them as cheaply as possible.

In fact much of his efforts were in establishing ways to make such vehicles cheaper than previously thought possible, this becoming his legacy as an industrial pioneer of such modern day norms as the assembly line. Ford was both an innovator and a pioneer, a visionary whose legacy is still with us today.

Mies Van Der Rohe designed houses and indeed created something of a legend for himself too. Both highly quotable men, but Mies purely a designer and not the social commentator like his French contemporary Charles Édouard-Jeanerret, another contemporary of Ford's.

"The house is a machine for living"
Charles -Édouard Jeanneret

(1887-1965)

Le Corbusier's (Charles Jeanneret's) Maison Dom-ino (Domino House). Built as an example of a general framework or plan for a home, with changeable 'components' or elements - 'the house is a machine for living'. In our context, a chassis with the opportunity for adaptation and variation.

The Model T was Ford's formative model and although a little janky by today's standards it was the car that Ford built its legacy upon. With 15 million units sold and a production run of almost two decades, it's earned it's place in the history books as the first mass market automobile.

Ford's luxury line didn't appear until 1922 with the purchase of Lincoln, but prior to this date and by way of its formative product, Ford had elevated the driving experience to rival that of comparative means, namely rail track, aviation or the horse and cart - the latter which the automobile now sought to replace.

The horse remains to this day a measure of power output. The Evoke Urban Classic musters a respectable 34hp (or 25kw) from its almost-silent running and gearless hub motor.

Today Ford sees success with an expansive model range and it's Model T Ford might share some DNA with it's popular F150 truck which stands in its own right as a successful model with the following stats: 44 years in production, 7 generations, 40,000,000 sold.

The Ford brand's years of thrift under the leadership of it's founder paved the way for later forays into racing and models that sit next to the Model T as brand icons. It was the Model T and it's countless variants that built the Ford car company, and through that austere approach to product design and model range, an automotive titan was born.

It may sound a stretch to suggest there's a comparison to be made between such a household name as Ford with a history spanning over a century and an automotive startup not yet a decade old, but aside from both technically being in the same industry, both Ford and Evoke Electric Motorcycles took a pragmatic and user-centric approach to vehicle development, building onto a trusted chassis and updating components as uptake in the product grew.

The Evoke Urban Classic by Evoke Motorcycles offers 3 rider modes, each a balance between available power and consumption.

Alongside reducing power demand and serving to increase range our eco-mode may offer additional confidence to a new rider trying out a full-sized motorcycle for the first time.

The Evoke Urban-S, Pre-cursor to the Classic.

At the other end of the spectrum, Pro mode, serves as a setting for anyone with somewhere to be and little time to waste (all the power: range be damned) and City mode as something of a happy medium between the two.

The Evoke Motorcycle App

Alongside our riding modes, and as part of our 2023 updates, The Evoke Urban range allows riders to review the bike's core metrics while out of the saddle by way of our proprietary app for Android devices.

It's just one of a number of new features as part of updates found on the 2023 Urban Classic.

Now close to the final stages of its developmental journey, Evoke have shaped a platform currently in its 17th and 18th iteration that continues to see testing and development and like Ford building on the success of its Model T, are about to venture out into new markets and model lines with the 6061-GT.

Both companies employed a lean approach to development and both innovated and updated along the same simple chassis until a stage was reached when it was time to explore new avenues.

Both serve(d) the everyman with an everyday vehicle built to be simple, affordable and reliable and by doing so reached the greatest number of consumers.

It would be easy to consider the legacy of Henry Ford to be the cars he made and brand he built, but in fact a greater legacy is in the way those cars were made. When considering what’s required to perform in the market there’s something to be learned from even the humblest of Ford’s offerings and that’s in its manufacture.

The impact of lean manufacturing is much like the Ford brand - a global phenomenon - but although Fords make their way up and down highways, around race courses and sit patiently on dealership forecourts, lean is alive not only in classrooms and lecture theatres but on factory floors and in transcending automotive as a model for industrial efficiency wholesale.  

In Nathan Siy, there’s a student of lean manufacturing that’s learned through practice, that startups need take quick gulps of air to sustain the output required to maintain operations.  That journey continues almost a decade since the company's founding with grounded business decisions that allow the path ahead to remain clear of obstacles and impediments.

If tenets of lean weren’t a factor at the beginning, they certainly entered the fray early on and this came through customer engagement and feedback as a result of uptake spearheaded by Sebastian Chobrok’s assertive sales strategy.

While we see Henry Ford as a monolith and whether or not there was an unsung aid at his side, Evoke remains largely a two-man operation (total employer headcount not-withstanding) and the founding duo at Evoke endure, standing ready to advance into the next era of the company’s growth and model range and its second decade of operations.

After over 7 years subtly refining the same core product, its componentry and the pack that powers it, the Evoke Urban platform in both its S and Classic iterations  has seen a steady and consistent developmental arc.

It's the bike that's been taken on trips out of town, the bike that's been shipped globally to four different continents and the bike that's been continually ridden and tested both in-house and by our customers on a daily basis.

You could say the company's been built around it and it could also be said that a lot of stock has been invested in its ability to maintain a market segment where it is unrivalled.

It's in part how Evoke can price the bike at the point that they do. It's only possible due to our location in China and the relationships we've built with suppliers over the years.

Those that weren't delivering to our standards and ambitions we simply moved on from and those partnerships we currently maintain we do so for a reason.

Our component partners, based upon long-standing and amicable relations allow us to define specs and suggest improvements that get our bike to where we feel it needs to be both in terms of performance and reliability.

Despite the established supply chain we have with component manufacturer's, we don't miss an opportunity to shop around.

It's this foresight that allows us deliver an assured service in battery building, further innovate our range and expand new product lines on entirely new platforms.

Just  as Evoke have built a practical albeit 21st Century workhorse of a vehicle that's ethos is driven by mass-market uptake and rideability, the success of this tried and true method and means of transportation gives rise to the opportunity for something else entirely.

The GT-6061 is where the next phase of the Evoke journey begins. In that the company is grateful to all of our followers for their sustained interest and shared passion.

In the Evoke Urban-S and Classic we built a bike that serves as a effective and fun city bike with ample grunt behind it. With the GT-6061, we're picking up on the theme of grunt and making that our core metric.

The numbers point to a vehicle that pulls like a tractor, goes like the devil and offers range that pushes the envelope. Keen to deliver on the promise of these stats it's this model that will define the company going forward.