Indholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2022 i Motorcycle Classics

After two years off, we’re super excited to see the return of one of the coolest, fanciest and most entertaining motorcycle events of the year, as The Quail Motorcycle Gathering takes to the lush green lawns of the Quail Lodge in Carmel, California, on Saturday, May 14, 2022. Along with all the normal categories, this year’s featured classes include the Harley-Davidson XR750, the BMW / 5 Series, 2-strokes, mini bikes and for the first time, a display-only class of hot rods and classic cars. More than 350 bikes will be on the lawn, along with vendors and exhibitors, motorcycle manufacturers, and, as always, a gourmet lunch. Paul d'Orleans will return as MC for the event, and Roland Sands will be in attendance, as he has been nominated as the Quail’s…

1974-1976 BMW R90S BMW’s 1976 R90S was intended to create a sportier image for the company — and it did. Steve McLaughlin won the opening round of the new AMA Superbike series at Daytona in 1976 with Reg Pridmore second, both riding R90S-based bikes. The 1976 championship went to Pridmore. The S was the first big street bike with a fairing and twin disc brakes and also boasted a hand-applied custom paint job. It sold 17,000 over a three-year production run, despite being almost twice the price of a Honda 750. The S spec included dual 38mm Dell’Orto carbs and higher compression — 9.5:1 instead of 9:1, giving seven extra ponies over the R90/6’s 60 horsepower. And though the S lacked the outright power of its Japanese contemporaries, it would…

When an Irish visitor to the factory museum said that he knew where the very first Triumph motorcycle was, and that it was for sale, there was a strong possibility that the guide would think he’d kissed the Blarney Stone and forgotten all about it. But he had the good sense to take his phone number and pass it on to Dick Shepherd. As anyone who has visited Hinckley will know, most of the motorcycles on display belong to Dick. He never passes on the chance to follow up a lead, never mind how unlikely it might seem, and finding the first Triumph would be a dream come true for the avid collector. But the U.K. was in a Covid lockdown and nipping over to Ireland was out of the…

A rider doing 150 miles per hour 70 years ago at Bonneville riding a British bike and wearing not much more than a birthday suit? Rollie Free on the Vincent Black Lightning, right? Certainly, Rollie Free did famously take the U.S. national motorcycle speed record in 1948, balanced on the rear fender of a Vincent Black Lightning wearing only a Speedo, shower cap and sneakers. But the above description fits at least one other speed record run. Three years later, a softly-spoken, self-effacing racer from Eugene, Oregon, lined up a couple of very special BSAs on the salt flats for some equally outrageous speed attempts. His name: Gene Thiessen. The bikes were tuned versions of BSA’s new OHV parallel twins, first seen in road-going form the previous year: the 500cc…

What: The Lyon Air Museum, 19300 Ike Jones Road, Santa Ana, California, 92707, (714) 210-4585. Open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day. Admission is $13, $10 for senior citizens, kids are $6, and children under 5 are free. How to Get There: It’s a little tricky: Take the 405 Freeway to SR 55 north, exit MacArthur to Fitch to Red Hill Avenue to Ike Jones Road. The museum is tucked away on the northwest side of John Wayne Airport. Best Kept Secrets: The Atomic Café, only a few hundred feet from the Museum. Try the French toast; you won’t be disappointed. The Lyon Air Museum is available for events (weddings, retirement parties, etc.) and it’s a venue that makes any gathering a life-long memory. Avoid: Not bringing a…

Big thumper Reader Mark Kurth shares the results of his latest project with us. Good job Mark! —Ed. I kept myself busy during the pandemic, working on a project that really should’ve been deemed too bad to do. It’s what happens, I guess, when you lock a guy up with a pile of parts and tools for 4 months! This is a 1967 BSA 441 Shooting Star that I’d purchased years ago as a parts bike. I already had a lot of spare parts that fit the unit single, including a 1960s-era American Competition Engineering body kit that I’d acquired with another bike. After riding my brother’s 441 Victor, I decided I’d like to build one for myself. In 2021, when things shut down I didn’t have a project in…

“The famous Bologna factory has carved itself a special place among motorcycle enthusiasts, due in no small part to the charisma of its products.” —Mick Walker,Ducati: From the Clip-On Engine to the 916 Bevel-drive overhead cam 750cc Ducati twins from the 1970s are undeniably special. The allure of the bevel-drive twin has grown to the point where a top of the line round case Super Sport can presently bring in over $190,000 at auction. The GT version, like the one Scott Somers owns, doesn’t have the desmo heads and race pedigree, but it does have a much less aggressive riding position, and 750 GTs can be had for a much more reasonable price. Scott says it is a joy to ride on back roads. From little to big Ducati started…

The Haas Moto Museum & Sculpture Gallery in the Dallas Design District bills itself as “A museum like no other.” The vision of the museum’s founder, Bobby Haas, was not to create the biggest display of motorcycles and related art, but the best. Following a recent visit, I’m convinced his museum is not only like no other, in many ways it’s superior to any other. To understand what makes the museum special, we need to know something about its founder, who led a remarkable life distinguished by bold achievements in several seemingly unrelated arenas. The Road to Motorcycles A Harvard-trained lawyer, Bobby’s early career was spent on Wall Street in the 1980s where his activities in the areas of private equity and leveraged buyouts earned him enough money that he…

BSA is back! Almost exactly 50 years after the final machine rolled off the lines of its Small Heath factory in central Birmingham in the summer of 1973, BSA has finally been revived. Very appropriately, at Birmingham’s Motorcycle Live Show on December 4, 2021, the new 2022 BSA Gold Star was unveiled, named after the company’s most illustrious sporting model, and the product of five years of planning and development by giant Indian conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra/M&M, after it purchased the rights to the historic name in November 2016 from British holder BSA Regal. Since then, Classic Legends — a subsidiary of M&M in which it holds a 60% stake — has been working under the leadership of its CEO Ashish Joshi, a 15-year former Royal Enfield key executive before…

After winning fourteen World Superbike titles, we tend to take Ducati’s current competitiveness in top-level 4-stroke racing for granted. But until an Italian spring day exactly 50 years ago, the Bologna factory then owned by the Italian government had precisely zero big-bike credentials, known primarily instead as a producer of small-capacity singles. But as for developing a big twin that could beat the fours built by GP world champions MV Agusta or Honda, or the new-generation Japanese 2-strokes, let alone the host of established British and Italian twins and triples — forget it. Ducati were outsiders in a big-bike brotherhood populated by BSA/Triumph, MV, Honda, Moto Guzzi, BMW, Laverda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Benelli, Norton — oh, and Harley-Davidson, too. But the now sadly departed late Paul Smart’s Imola 200 race victory…

Carb kits Q: I have a 1981 Honda 750 Classic. I am having trouble finding carburetor repair kits. Are OEM kits still available? All of the dealers here in Ohio have closed. Any help would be appreciated. John Walker/via email A: You might try Matt Wiley at Moto-Vintage.net, as they sell K&L carburetor parts. Sirius Consolidated Inc. (siriusconinc.com), also sells kits for that year. Throttle response Q: Hi Keith, I enjoy reading your articles in Motorcycle Classics. I just got a modern Triumph T100 and I noticed the on/off throttle response at lower speeds is very “jerky.” I read up on this and it seems this is a common problem. There is a device called a booster plug which I have installed and it seems to help. Is there a…

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak,” they say on Madison Avenue. By 1977, the Harley-Davidson Sportster still had plenty of beef, but the grill was running low on gas. What to do? As he had with the 1971 Super Glide, H-D styling guru Willie G. Davidson caught the zeitgeist: his team took the 997cc Sportster, reached into the Juneau Avenue parts bin, added blacked-out fiberglass bodywork and incorporated virtuoso exhaust headers — still the most distinctive styling touch on the XLCR. The sizzle became a three-alarm blaze! The XL Café Racer was, underneath the fancy dress, just an iron-head Sportster. But the dress-up was quite impressive. Willie G. chose lines that echoed the Fastback Norton Commando but with distinctive angularity, then added a handlebar fairing. The finish was basic black,…

Her first name is a mystery, but what we do know is this: in August 1955, Mrs. R.L. Harper, Jr., bought a 1956 Harley-Davidson FL brand new from a dealer in Goodland, Kansas. R.L., as we will call her, had ridden Cushman scooters during her high school years, and progressed to an Indian Scout and then a war surplus Harley-Davidson 45. After buying her Panhead for approximately $1,255, she’d occasionally return to the dealer and add accessories, such as the spotlights, parking lights, heel/toe shift lever, license plate frame, cigarette lighter and rear bumper. The mufflers, too, were swapped out and they tell their own story. We’ll get to that shortly. R.L. enjoyed her Panhead for only a few years, because in 1960 she was involved in an automobile accident.…

In the world of antiques, originality and authenticity are paramount. If a piece has been “skinned” (its original finish or patina has been destroyed) it may lose much of its value. But if the item has been “made” (recently manufactured) to look like an antique, how can you tell? With the emergence at auction of $200,000 green frame Ducati 750SSs and million-dollar Crockers, there’s plenty of incentive to produce a fake. And while there are antiques whizzes called “divvies” who are supposed to have an intuitive skill in separating the genuine article from the copies, it’s tough to take instinct to the bank. That’s where provenance comes in. If you can trace the ownership of your antique back to the original owner — and especially if there’s corroborating evidence —…

Honda’s CB400F Super Sport, a model that enjoyed a three-year run from 1975-1977, is probably one of the most underappreciated motorcycles from Japan. Powered by a spunky inline 408cc four-cylinder engine, the 400F was actually a replacement for the CB350 Four, a bike that Soichiro Honda himself declared at the time to be “the finest, smoothest Honda ever built.” Cycle magazine was less generous, labeling the inline 350 as the “reply to a query never raised — unless someone wanted to know how few cubic centimeters Honda could split by four.” In short, the 350 Four, offered from 1972 through 1974, was exceedingly slow … and dull. Even Honda’s hot-selling twin-cylinder 350 — sold during those same years — was quicker and faster … and more fun to ride. Honda…

World champion Kevin Schwantz now owns the 500cc Suzuki that he made his Grand Prix debut on back in 1986. Today he winds back the years to relive an amazing season. It’s not unusual for a motorcyclist to want to track down the first bike they ever owned. It’s not even unusual for a Grand Prix racer to be reunited with the motorcycle they won a world championship on decades earlier. But it is very unusual for a world champion to track down and buy the exact racer on which they made their Grand Prix debut. That’s what 1993 World 500cc Grand Prix champion Texan Kevin Schwantz has managed to achieve. His 1986 Heron Suzuki XR70RV is considered by many to be the ultimate development of the RG500. Pushing out…

The Lyon Air Museum in Santa Ana, California, combines an outstanding collection of World War II aircraft, vintage motorcycles, and both vintage and modern automobiles. The airplanes dominate the museum due to their size, with the cars and motorcycles displayed around the aircraft and under their wings. No story about the Lyon Air Museum would be complete without touching on the man who created it. General William Lyon (1923-2020) was the real deal, a self-made billionaire entrepreneur and citizen-soldier whose accomplishments almost exceed what can be described by known adjectives. He flew combat missions in World War II and Korea. He was Chief of the Air Force Reserve in the 1970s. He was an accomplished real estate developer and one of America’s most successful homebuilders (he built more than a…