How Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds has boosted this British electric motorcycle firm

A Coventry-based electric motorcycle manufacturer has become a much-loved brand for a certain Hollywood actor – Ryan Reynolds.

Arc – headed up by founder and CEO Mark Truman – boasts ‘the world’s most advanced motorcycles’, with its Vector model using a 16.8kWh battery to deliver up to 271 miles of range from a charge. It can also hit a top speed of 120mph and do 0-60mph in around three seconds.

And it’s the Vector that caught the eye of actor Reynolds – who has starred in films such as Deadpool and the hit Netflix series Welcome to Wrexham, which tracked his and fellow actor Rob McElhenney’s early ownership days of the north Wales football club – and saw him get in contact with Arc directly via social media.

As a result, Reynolds ended up taking delivery of a personalised Vector – which cost between £100,000 and £150,000 – in November 2022, with unique touches such as unlacquered copper across the motorcycle. Eco-conscious Reynolds also requested the use of flax – a hemp-like material – to be used throughout the battery-powered Vector’s design.

Truman told the PA news agency that Reynolds was a ‘very down-to-earth guy’.

“He didn’t want to jump the queue,” said Truman.

“And he wanted to pay full price. Ryan told us that ‘the bike blew his mind’.

“When he was a little kid, he’d imagined what it would be like to be Superman flying just above the ground and this was the closest he’d ever get.”

Reynolds has stayed in touch with Arc after taking delivery of his Vector and recently took to Instagram to report to his 50 million followers just how much he was enjoying the motorcycle. As a result, Arc has seen an increase in engagement of ‘around 1,200 per cent’ via its social media feeds.

In response, Arc created its own Instagram post to thank the 46-year-old for his support.

“At midnight [after Reynolds’ post] we thought ‘Right, we’ve got to do something’, so we dreamt up a bit of a plan and did a midnight run to a 24-hour Tesco and found the last bottle of Aviation gin and put something together,” said Truman.

“I think people have been enjoying the banter between us.”