Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i The Classic MotorCycle

The Sammy Miller Museum has recently acquired two 350cc, four-valve Rudge-Whitworths from Mrs Sam Judd of Wakefield, who is a keen motorcyclist. The pair belonged to her father Alan, who, while in poor health and in a care home, expressed his wish for the bikes to go to the Museum Trust. Sammy agreed to purchase them at the insurance value, which greatly pleased Alan, as he had been a regular museum visitor. On arrival at the workshop, it was decided to strip them for complete restoration. The engine and gearbox were in good condition as Alan had made great progress on them, including complete new valve gear. Mike Collingston of Rudge Spares was a great help. One of the two had its V5, with matching numbers, while the second one…

The 1958 edition was the 33rd running of the ISDT and held in the alpine mountains. The event was based around the Bavarian, south Germany, ski resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, known for holding the 1936 winter Olympics and also where the 1956 ISDT had been. Our picture shows three Matchless singles, sparkling and ready for the gruelling event, outside the AMC works in Plumstead. Competition shop guru Wally Wyatt has his hand on the truck’s door handle, while competition manager and ex-rider High Viney, left, and Bob Manns flank jacketless (I think!) scrambles star Dave Curtis. Of the bikes, the one on the left, is the 350cc (G3CS) model ridden by Sid Wicken, the one on the right the identical model at the disposal of Manns, which means, by process…

Barry Tomlin likes BMWs. Since the 1960s, he hasn’t been without one, with the R60 pictured here, photographed alongside his more recently acquired R69S, the one which has remained a constant in his garage. The prestige attached to the BMW name in the motorcycle world of the 1950s and 1960s is perhaps underestimated by the classic enthusiast of today, though a look at price lists underline just why a Beemer was so revered – in 1955, on launch, an R69 was £489 while a Vincent Black Shadow was £355, an Ariel Square Four £308 and a Golden Flash A10 was just under £230. By the time of the R69S, in 1960, the Vin and the Squariel were long gone (Vincent) and just extinct (Ariel) which left the ticket price of…

The first Sunday in December is the traditional date for the Jack Thompson British Bike Trial, and a full entry of 120 assembled on a chilly and gloomy morning at Canada Heights, the Sidcup & District MCC’s glorious motorcycle playground just a piston’s throw from the M25. With 20 sections to be covered twice, the club offered a promising day’s sport and it was delivered to just about everyone’s satisfaction. This was the 33rd Jack Thompson Trial, and while the format has been fine-tuned over the years, the basic ethos of the event remains the same, and so does its popularity. One reminder of how the time passes was that in 2022 there were no entries from any who had competed in all the preceding trials. Last man standing had…

The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) launched the Grand Prix Motorcycle Championships of the World for the 1949 season. Previously, results from appropriate Grands Prix contributed to the contest known as the Championship of Europe. On launch, the motorcycle GP World Championship comprised five classes: 125, 250, 350 and 500cc solo, plus 600cc sidecars. A 50cc class ran 1962-83 and an 80cc class 1984-89. Sidecars were moved away from the GP series in 1997 to become the Sidecar World Cup, in 2001 the Superside and, from 2017, the 600cc four-stroke, during this later period engine types and capacities were manipulated. In 1949, the Sidecar GP World Championship was held over three rounds, with wins at Berne and Spa plus a fifth place at Monza; Eric Oliver, crewed by Denis Jenkinson…

In the first of this two-part series, the column looks at the 344cc inline Villiers two-stroke twin engine, manufactured 1927-8 and, possibly, into early 1929. Known variously as the ‘350cc Twin’ or ‘344cc Twin’ it was of unit construction, with its oil-cooled clutch, worm wheel for turning the drive through 90 degrees and three-speed gearbox. While the engine bottom end and unit construction design were new, the engine’s top end drew on past successes. For 1924, Villiers had unveiled the 172cc (57.15 x 67mm bore and stroke) single cylinder two-stroke engine, with barrel and head cast in iron as one. The model names of these two engines indicate method of lubrication, giving the ‘Sports Petroil’ and ‘Sports Autolube.’ Both engines performed better than rivals in their class, while speedmen soon…

Although The Motor Cycle article – published February 5, 1920 – gives the impression that the Militor is a new machine, in fact the only thing reasonably new about it, really, was the name ‘Militor’ – for the company had already been through several iterations and names by this time. In fact, the man behind the business – which was based in multiple places – Norman Sinclair, apparently went bankrupt five times, but, every time he managed to dust himself down and set up again, convincing investors of the potential success and viability of his ‘two-wheeled car.’ Norm must’ve been some salesman. The story begins in the autumn of 1910, when the Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal carried details of the Deluxe, built in Cleveland, Ohio. Its specification included retractable…

This year’s Classic Dirt Bike Show, being held at the Telford International Centre, over February 11/12, will welcome three-time world champion motocross star Dave Thorpe as guest of honour. As Britain’s most successful motocross racer, with three 500cc world championships, a veterans world title and multiple British championships to his name, Dave remains the last British rider to win the premier division in world motocross. He began his career with Kawasaki, switching to Honda in 1984; his first world title came in 1985, he retained his crown in 1986 and won again in 1989. Star motorcycles featuring at the show include Jeff Smith’s 1955 Scottish Six Days Trial-winning Gold Star, an ex-Scott Ellis C15T – winner of the 1964 British Experts – and Mick Andrews’ Scottish-winning, landmark monoshock Yamaha. Further…

News & Events Farningham is a quiet Kent village, but on Boxing Day (Covid permitting) its High Street experiences gridlock, seeing more traffic than it ever did when it was the main London-Folkestone road. And the problem is caused by the numbers of motorcycles. The catalyst for this happening is the Vintage Club’s West Kent Section’s Boxing Day Run. In 2022, with a crisp but sunny day, some 30 or so bikes were up for a meander round some of the local lanes, before turning up at the Pied Bull pub, once a historic coaching inn, so with a convenient and generously-sized car park. The event has been established for a number of years and the opportunity to attend a motorcycle gathering has caught the imagination of many riders, with…

The next prize in the National Motorcycle Museum’s raffle series is a brand-new BSA Gold Star legacy edition, which is the top of the range version of this much anticipated new arrival from the resurgent BSA company. The lucky runner-up will get a 1968 Bushman Bantam, and Sealey Tools will provide a third prize. The draw will take place on Sunday, April 23, 2023,at The International Classic Motorcycle Show, Stafford. Raffle tickets can be purchased online by visiting www.thenmm.co.uk…

Some might call it abuse... On leaving college in 1975, I went dispatching on a 750cc Suzuki GT750. The ‘Kettle’ was a great bike in many ways, but after two straight line tank slappers, I decided it had to go before it killed me. The solution? Obviously, a Ducati! The 860 had been out for a short while, but the looks didn’t appeal, so I rang around looking for a new 750 GT. Just when it seemed there were none to be had, Sports Motorcycles said they had probably the last 750 in the country. Not a GT, but a Sport, as featured in the January 2023 issue. On hearing there was a dual seat option available, I became a Ducati owner for the first time. I still had to…

Moto Guzzi | Centennial celebrations What better way to celebrate my favourite Italian manufacturer’s 100th birthday than a ride to its home at Mandello Del Lario. Here, after an 800-mile ride over the weekend of September 10/11, 2022, I joined thousands of other like-minded enthusiasts to spend three wonderful days in the iconic, motorcycle-filled town, situated on the stunning shores of Lake Lecco, itself the eastern branch or prong of Lake Como. Before I take you for a walk around the narrow, sun-drenched streets, let’s turn the clock back to the early years of the 20th century and reflect on the days during the bitterly contested air war – fought for three years with the neighbouring Austro-Hungarian empire – when three friends, Carlo Guzzi, Giorgio Parodi and Giovanni Ravelli made…

Although beaten to the claim of creating America’s first four-cylinder motorcycle by the Pierce Four introduced in 1909, when Scottish-born brothers William G and Thomas W Henderson founded the Henderson Motorcycle Co in Detroit, Michigan in 1911, their aim was to manufacture a luxurious, reliable four-cylinder machine that was substantially better than anything else yet available in the marketplace. While Tom Henderson ran the company, brother Bill proved to be one of the finest engineers in the USA’s early days of motorcycle development, and the quality of his designs arguably outranked anything yet made by a European manufacturer – even Belgium’s FN company, which had invented the four-cylinder motorcycle in 1904. This resulted in the Henderson brothers’ products being christened ‘two-wheeled Cadillacs’, considerably better engineered than any other contemporary motorcycle.…

Stars of the Bristol Classic MotorCycle show, at the Royal Bath and West showground, Shepton Mallet, over the weekend of February 25/26, will be Norton rotary guru Brian Crighton and star rider, Trevor Nation. They’ll be joined by a selection of the rotary racers, machines which had British fans flocking back to the tracks in the late 1980s/early 1990s, as the unlikely team and their moody, black, fire-breathing motorcycles routinely humbled the big budget Japanese efforts. Nation, born in Somerset, endeared himself to race fans with his style and hard-charging, which won him the MCN TT Superbike championship in 1990, during his several seasons racing for the team. Away from Norton, he was also twice a TT winner, taking proddie bike wins in 1984 and 1986, was runner-up in the…

There had been steam-driven ‘boneshakers’ on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1860s, and, of course, Gottlieb Daimler’s gasoline-engined Einspur of 1885, but the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller was the first powered two-wheeler to enter series production; indeed, it is the first such device to which the name ‘motorcycle’ (motorrad in German) was ever applied. Although a true motorcycle, Daimler’s was only ever intended as a testbed for his high-revving internal combustion engine, and as soon as that was powerful enough he turned his attention to automobiles. Like many of their contemporaries, the Hildebrand brothers, Heinrich and Wilhelm, began by experimenting with steam power before turning to a (two-stroke) gasoline engine, the latter having been developed in partnership with Alois Wolfmüller and his mechanic, Hans Geisenhof. The quartet’s next design…

Walking around the Classic Bike Guide Winter Classic at Newark County Showground, over January 7/8, I realised I was becoming acutely aware that there’s been a real change in the make-up of classic motorcycle shows in the last few years, which was here, plain as day, to see. That being, the majority of the real catalogue-correct, superbly-detailed, ‘anorak’ (in the best possible sense!) restorations that now appear, are of Japanese machines. Of course, the reasons for this are myriad – and one of those, I’m also acutely aware of. The motorcycles of my childhood/youth period are now the ones being restored; born in 1978, I’ve always been a fan of ‘old bikes’ ever since I could remember, and while when I was 10 or 11 I really, really wanted a…

Steve White is evidently quite a determined individual. He journeyed to Italy to collect an exact replica of the 1962 Bianchi 175 he had ridden as a learner in the late 1960s, and, in the process, also bought the magnificent wartime BSA you see here. And then, pushing 70 years old, he took the necessary training, and a couple of months ago at the time of writing, finally passed his motorcycle test, so that he can ride his bikes. Travelling man Steve, a friendly guy with a light Wiltshire burr, is a retired electronics engineer, and no stranger to Italy, being a fan of Fiats in particular. His historic 1928 Fiat 520 meant his wife Bridget and he were recipients of an expenses-paid invitation to Turin for Fiat’s centenary celebration…

You cannot overstate the impact of Edward Turner’s late 1937 Triumph Speed Twin. No less a figure than Sir Malcolm Campbell, then three times World Land Speed record holder, in 1939 wrote: “In my opinion, the Triumph Speed Twin has no equal.” A contemporary road test found that “much of the joy in driving the model… comes from the delightful way the machine will zoom from 30mph to 60, 70 or 80mph at the will of the rider without his having to touch any control other than the twistgrip.” They achieved a best-timed run, admittedly with the wind behind, of 107mph, “an amazing figure for a fully equipped 500.” With all the adulation, it may be as well to remember that the Triumph twin’s debut had not been entirely trouble-free.…