Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i Motorcycle Classics

1960-1964 Mustang Thoroughbred If Cushman had started with a clean sheet in 1960, they might have come up with something like the Mustang Thoroughbred, which was essentially a standard motorcycle with scooter-sized wheels. The 319cc iron-barrel, alloy flathead single was fed by an Amal Concentric or Dell’Orto carburetor and drove a 4-speed Burman gearbox. The chassis employed a duplex tubular frame, telescopic fork and swinging-arm rear suspension. The 12-inch wheels were built around full width hubs with unusually short spokes. A dual seat (covering a huge toolbox), teardrop gas tank and downswept exhaust completed the package Aside from its role as a utility or beginner bike, the Mustang proved to be an unlikely competitive weapon on short, tight racetracks thanks to its scant weight and low center of gravity —…

By 1950 motorcycle enthusiasts were beginning to wonder if the Harley-Davidson Motor Company was ever going to fully engage the 20th Century. After all, Harley still offered a model powered by an aging flathead engine that was linked to a 3-speed transmission … with a hand shifter. By then many progressive companies offered models powered by overhead-valve engines coupled to foot-shift 4-speed transmissions. For the time that was front-line technology. Then in 1952, as if slowly yawning while emerging from a peaceful winter slumber, Harley-Davidson revealed its new K Model, featuring — drum roll, please — foot-shift and a unit construction engine in which the transmission shared the same confines as the engine’s lower end. Even though the K Model still featured side-valve combustion chambers (aka, flathead), the new K…

Owner Tom Arnott is used to having to explain the name of the company that built his DMW model P200. “You mean BMW?” is a frequent response. Many also confuse the initials with famous German brand DKW. But DMW is as English as steak and kidney pie. Perhaps the DMW brand is such a conundrum because in its 50 years of existence, the company produced just around 15,000 motorcycles, with precious few leaving Britain’s shores. Dawson’s Motors Wolverhampton was formed in the early-1940s at Bell Place, Wolverhampton, in Britain’s industrial West Midlands. William Leslie “Smokey” Dawson was a well-known racer in flat track and speedway races in his native Merseyside. The story goes that in the dust, smoke and mayhem of a grasstrack race, Dawson was confused with Australian rider…

Kawasaki 250 Bison & KE 175 “I have a couple of rotary-valve 2-stroke single trailbikes both from 1972 — the 250cc F8A Bison and the 175cc F7B, which are a pair of Mr. & Mrs. off-roaders. My wife Kay is very petite, so the F7B is ideal for her, because it’s actually a 125 frame with a 175 motor, so it’s a very small bike, but very effective. All the other Kawasaki 2-strokes were pistonport engines, but these trail bikes have rotary-valve engines, which were very effective back in the day. Actually, you could probably semi-submerge them in water and they’d still run, because the carburetors are mounted inside the engine on the side of the crank, so until you get the airbox under water, you’re good to go! “I…

Last issue we got the gas tank clean and the carburetors off the bike and disassembled. This time we’re going to clean the carburetors and reassemble them with some new parts. We got our rebuild kits from Matt Wiley at Moto-Vintage.net. The jets don’t suffer any appreciable wear in use, so you can use the factory jets if you want. We are fortunate enough to have use of an Ultrasonic cleaner, so everything goes in for a 15 minute heated shake in a dilute mix of Simple Green and water. Carburetor cleaner is another option. Gloves and good ventilation are a must if that’s what you use. —Keith Fellenstein…

Like an alarm clock You woke me up. Attached are a couple of photos of my 1967 Ducati Sebring. I could not believe my eyes when I saw my bike on the front cover of your magazine. I have been getting Motorcycle Classics from the start and always wished that an article on this bike would show up sometime, never believing it would get a full review. Thanks. I bought mine at a dealer in Fayetteville, North Carolina, when I was stationed at Fort Bragg in 1967. $610.00 got me the bike and I never looked back. As you can see, in 1971 I gave it some modifications. 1977 was the last time I rode it. It’s stowed in a shed waiting for me to bring it back. In 1998…

The 17th edition of the Barber Vintage Festival took place on a gloriously warm and dry weekend in Leeds, Alabama from October 7-9, 2022. The event drew 71,600 attendees over the three days and offered racing, swap meets, and a benefit dinner as well as tech sessions on tuning, pinstriping and wheel building. All this in addition to showcasing the largest collection of motorcycles in the world. As always, it was a challenge to take it all in. It was the final race weekend for the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association and AHRMA put on a great show. The paddock and track reverberated with the sounds of motorcycles of all ages and displacements competing for class championships. Two enormous swap areas were full of treasures while several manufacturers including Zero,…

“That engine!” Scott Mercer is referring to the 6-cylinder powerplant found in the legendary Honda CBX. It’s a mill that has long fascinated him, but a strong sense of nostalgia also plays a vital role in this story about his 1979 Honda CBX. It all starts in the early 1970s when Scott’s stepdad, Russ, got a once derelict Aermacchi-built 250cc Harley-Davidson on the road again. “It was a non-running machine,” Scott recalls of the Aermacchi. “My mom actually paid a shop to put it back together, and he taught me to ride that bike — that launched my motorcycle career. Russ was passionate about motorcycles, and I followed closely in his footsteps.” In 1978, the year Scott graduated from high school, his mom and stepdad bought him a 1972 BMW…

When Bultacos are mentioned, most think of motocross or trials machines, perhaps of enduros. Some may remember the Metralla sports bike. And a very few will recall the TSS road racers which, for a brief time, put the Spanish manufacturer firmly in the world championship conversation. Among even the most ardent Bultaco enthusiasts, few know that TSS stands for Tralla Super Sport. The first Bultaco, famously born on Señor Bulto’s farm in 1938 was the Tralla, a 125cc road model with (for the time) sporting performance. The progression from this modest beginning to the emergence of the TSS four years later is the missing link in the company’s history, a period barely touched upon in any Bultaco histories. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the…

Here is a real cutie, a little 250cc liquid-cooled 90-degree V-twin, with two overhead camshafts, 4 valves per cylinder, a 6-speed transmission, and according to a Cycle magazine dyno test, 26 horses at 12,500rpm being sent to the rear wheel. It’s a small bike, with a modest weight of 367 pounds with a full tank of gas. Thirty years ago the average American male weighed 180 pounds, half that of the VTR. Torque maxed out at 12.8ft/lb at 9,500rpm, and one magazine made a 14.83-second pass in the quarter-mile — with no mention of the rider’s weight. The Japanese had all sorts of size limits for its own domestic market, as well as restricted driving licenses for the young. So their small-bike market was big, and since they were making…

THE AUBURN CORD DUESENBERG AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM, AUBURN, INDIANA The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum, in Auburn, Indiana, houses a collection of more than 120 vintage vehicles, several aircraft engines, a single vintage motorcycle, and the Cord Corporation restored offices and automobile showroom. Located 140 miles northeast of Indianapolis, the museum was a convenient stop for us as we made our way north to Goshen to visit with Janus Motorcycles and their modern vintage Halcyon 450 (see Motorcycle Classics, September/October 2022). Auburn, population 14,000, is an interesting town that loves its automotive culture. During our visit, we observed vintage cars being used as daily drivers and several buildings downtown with classic automobile wall murals. It is a cool place. We did not know it at first, but there is a connection…

Which among us gearheads didn’t hanker after a powered two-wheeler in our early teens? Many resorted to lashing any available internal combustion engine (like from a chain saw) to a bicycle. The concept was so good it was embraced in the Whizzer power bike. But often the only powerplant available to an enterprising and constructive farm kid would have been a utility engine designed to power log splitters, sawmills, cherry pickers, pumps and so on. These were sturdy, heavy units designed for reliability and ease of maintenance rather than performance, and therefore less suitable for clipping to a bicycle frame. One such motor was the Husky. Cousins Everett and Clinton Cushman began making Huskybrand proprietary engines in Omaha, Nebraska, around 1902, though both quit the company within 20 years. The…

Getting through the pandemic, with the accompanying isolation and worry, was difficult for many people. Mike Rettie managed through fly fishing, gardening and finishing the restoration of this 1948 Norton International, a very fast bike for its era and an unusual find in the United States. Mike’s International is not only fast, but therapeutic. “It got me through Covid and transitioning to retirement,” he says. Norton Internationals come from an era where the English Norton company was a top road racing contender and built technologically advanced machinery. In the 1940s, Norton riders were on the podium in most international events. While most 1940s motorcycles made do with a side-valve or overhead valve engine, the Manx factory racers had dual overhead cams. The postwar production racers had telescopic forks and, from…

A key path to profitability in the global motorcycle industry is to produce as many different variations on a theme as possible, by using the same essential mechanical platform to spawn differing but distinctive models appealing to diverse customer groups. Obvious, maybe — but few companies have been as adept at this, and in such volume, as Royal Enfield, and the new Scram 411 urban hot rod derived from its Himalayan ADV/adventure bike is the Indian company’s latest proof of this expertise — and all on its usual affordable basis for Western customers. Royal Enfield built its first motorcycle in 1901, which 120 years onwards makes it the world’s oldest bike brand to have maintained unbroken production throughout its life, with its recently superceded 350/500cc OHV Bullet models continuously manufactured…

2022 marked the 50th birthday of two ultra-significant models in Kawasaki’s back catalogue, which at the same time could hardly be more contrasting one to the other. They’re the beat-that-Honda 903cc 4-cylinder Z1 4-stroke and the H2 Mach IV 750cc 2-stroke triple, Kawasaki’s ultimate drag-strip dominatrix which took no prisoners in straight-line competition. Going round corners was however quite a different matter. One man who’s been fortunate enough to be able to celebrate both birthdays by simply opening his garage doors and choosing any of the 22 different Kawasakis he owns for a ride through the countryside around his home is British Kawa-kollector Rich Hobbs. For Guildford, Surrey-born Rich, 57, who runs a property maintenance business, has been a Kawasaki owner since 1984, after passing his test a couple of…

Before we discuss Gerald Foster’s (with Chris Carter) book When Honda Went Dirt Track Racing — truly a titanic tome packing 544 pages within hardbound covers measuring 12 3/8-inches by 11 1/4-inches and weighing a hefty 7.25 pounds — we should talk about the real elephant in the room. That, of course, is that flat track racing is an American sport dating back to (seemingly) the early days of dirt itself. Honda? Well, it’s a motorcycle (and automotive) company that originated in Japan back in 1948, not doing business on these shores until mid-1959. And during that span of 11 years every racer to win the AMA Grand National Championship did so riding a Harley-Davidson. Not even Honda’s celebrated 1970 Daytona 200 win (Dick Mann on a CB750) could elevate…

Best Seller! MOTORCYCLE CLASSICS NAVY SHORT SLEEVE T-SHIRT S-3XL This Motorcycle Classics T-shirt will quickly become an old favorite! Made of super-soft material, this shirt is perfect for wearing on your rides or when you’re working on your bike. Emblazoned with an outline of the 1960 Triumph 5TA Speed Twin and our slogan, “Ride ‘Em, Don’t Hide ‘Em,” this shirt announces to everyone your love of motorcycles and Motorcycle Classics! The navy blue short-sleeve T-shirt is made of slightly heathered, medium-weight cotton-poly jersey fabric for a durable yet unbeatable feel. #9424-29 $15.00-18.00 Members: $12.75/14.75/15.30 New! BACKROADS OF ROUTE 66 This wonderfully illustrated, up-todate guide to the natural, cultural, and historical gems hidden just off the legendary Route 66 outlines 30 trips for curious travelers. In this completely revised and updated version…