Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i The Classic MotorCycle

The third of our archive pictures this month – and the third which features a three-wheeler, with the first and this one sidecar outfit-heavy, the middle one the trike. It just underlines how for so many years – the pictures cover the period from the early 1920s to the mid-1960s – motorcycles with additional ability to carry extra passengers were a crucial element of the movement. But by the time of this image, published in The Motor Cycle of May 2, 1963, the writing for the devices was somewhat on the wall, as the small car finally established itself, at the expense of the motorcycle and sidecar. This striking image was part of a set published to illustrate an article by David Dixon, entitled Magic of the Red Hand and…

It’s hard for those of us not equally gifted mechanically to ever imagine how someone can take a derelict motorcycle race engine from a long-ago bygone era, often already dismantled into assorted boxes devoid of any notes about timing or reassembly, and then carefully piece it together again just as the designer originally intended. And not just as a static display in a museum, but reinstalled in the original bike it formerly powered, to be ridden in public as a living re-creation of yesterday once more. Such incredibly gifted men are few and far between, making it pretty unlikely that anyone else has worked on such a vast range of exotic motorcycle engines of every era, and all types, as British engineering wizard John Ring. Modest and unassuming, former sidecar…

There’s a definite parallel between Harold Macmillan’s famous declaration that Britain had ‘never had it so good’ and the economic climate we find ourselves navigating today. Both eras share the uncomfortable mixture of optimism and uncertainty, of aspiration held back by the sobering reality of making ends meet. In the late 1950s, it was inflation and wage restraint that cast shadows over the postwar boom; today, it’s supply chain disruption, energy costs, and the effects of ongoing conflicts and political upheaval that remind us – daily – how quickly our economic fortunes can shift. Little has really changed about our response to such economic uncertainty: we still want more than we can afford, we still aspire to something better than our current circumstances, and we still are forced to make…

It almost goes without saying that during the early years of the motorcycle, there were literally hundreds of companies producing machines, not only here in the UK, but in other countries around the world. The vast majority of these are now just names in the history books and period publications, and even the hard work of the authors of motorcycle encyclopaedias struggle to pen more than a couple of paragraphs about the most obscure of them. The fledgling manufacturers, the vast majority of whom in reality were not more than motorcycle assemblers using propriety engines, forks etc and just branding the resulting machines as their own motorcycle, came and went, often lasting not more than a couple of years. In some cases, their history is quite complex, as is the…

THE SPECIALIST Operating from south-east London premises, Ace Classics has become a by-word for its dealings in pre-unit Triumphs and its efforts in supplying quality aftermarket parts. We are grateful to Cliff Rushworth for taking time from a busy period to help out with this restoration guide for the first generation of what became Triumph’s most famous model. ■ Ace Classics: 0208 698 4273; ■ www.aceclassics.co.uk MODEL HISTORY The 1958 launch of Triumph’s Bonneville was a surprise. The model was even too new for the already-printed catalogues for the 1959 range. Replacing the T110 as the company’s flagship model, the T120 had visual differences, with a more sporting take in styling and a new colour scheme. The engine was a T110, but with all the factory optional bells and whistles…

Progress has sort of stalled with Project ‘90’ at the moment, for no other reason than effectively the bike is finished… to a certain degree. It does run but getting a bike running is actually just the end of the first stage; getting it running properly is an exercise in frustration or a test of patience. There’s also the ‘how do I want it to run?’ question, by which I mean will it be a plodding trials bike, a fire-breathing motocrosser or a mix of the two for enduro use? This means the original idea behind it – to use up parts lying around and to see if a working Triumph could be built for not a lot of money – has played out. I set out to prove this…

This picture was published in the October 23, 1924, edition of The Motor Cycle, included as part of an article called ‘Passenger machine topics.’ The photograph itself was captioned: “SIDECAR SPORT: Motorcycle polo is a new game which demonstrates the extraordinary manoeuvring capabilities of the two-track three-wheeler. So swift is the game that, as will be seen, sidecar tyres are frequently shed – without much detriment to the rims, however, since the game is played on grass. Incidentally, the above incident forms part of The Motor Cycle film for 1924-25.” Well, what can we make out from the picture itself, as the caption gives us nothing regarding location, makes of motorcycle or name of protagonists – and there’s not a lot to see either, as the ‘chairs’ are facing us.…

The Vincent-HRD company commenced the manufacture of motorcycles at Stevenage in 1928. Initially, the firm fitted single-cylinder engines bought in from other makers, mostly JAP and Rudge, but by 1934 Philip Vincent had begun to lose faith in JAP products and the supply of Rudge units became unreliable. So, in 1934, the company set to and designed its own 500cc single-cylinder engine. From early 1935 it used that engine to power road models known as the Meteor, Comet, Comet Special and TT Replica. Coming in differing states of tune, all were lusty singles that demanded plenty of rider input. They also required regular maintenance to maintain and deliver original levels of performance, a fact the company was quite open about in its advertising. Designer of the single-cylinder range was Phil…

Reading through Phil Turner’s words on the preceding pages, comparing the days of the original Bantam with our modern times, then it brings us neatly up-to-date to feature a modern itineration of the BSA Bantam, unveiled late July 2025 in London, following an evening presentation the night before, in which BSA owner Anupam Thareja had flown in from Indian to preview his company’s new product. Though it was no great secret BSA was planning to revive the Bantam name, following on from its Gold Star relaunch in December 2021, the question was – what format would the new motorcycle take? One thing that was pretty certain, was it wouldn’t be a two-stroke, while the smart money wouldn’t have bet on sub 200cc either. Best guess theories were that BSA would…

In 2018, when a motorcycle class was first introduced at the Bressuire GP Historique, there were only 20 entrants, five riding British-built machines, but no riders from the UK. Seven years later, 50 prewar motorcycles and sidecar combinations took to the Bressuire circuit. Twenty-six were British manufactured and 18 entrants came from the UK, some from as far as the Isle of Man. The British contingent at Bressuire provided a sense of déjà vu, for many of those had ridden the Chinon Classic a week earlier, seizing the opportunity to participate in two French vintage motorcycling events, a week apart, with five days’ holiday in between. All for little more than a week off work! The Bressuire GP Historique is staged over a day-and-a-half. A demonstration event, it offers entrants…

Luxury of all luxuries, after what felt like a lifetime of family, work, and household commitments, I managed to find a full, free day to work on the MZ. There’s something almost therapeutic about opening the workshop door with genuine time to spare, rather than snatching the odd frustrated hour here and there. I’ll admit to breathing a big sigh of relief on opening that door to find no puddle of oil underneath the front fork leg. Lesson learnt from the month before last’s mishap: get the right tools to do the job and invest in a torque wrench. With that disaster behind me, attention could finally turn to the really big job that, to be honest, I’d been putting off: the engine rebuild. If you read my column a…

There were 414 entries in the 1957 incarnation of the Jack Pine Enduro, in Michigan, USA, as reported in the September 9 edition of The Motor Cycle, with a quartet of them using ‘swamp buggies,’ as exampled here. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: “Jack Pine novelty: Harold Ward and Sherman Manchester in their ‘swamp buggy’ with which they won the Class A award for sidecars. Their Harley-Davidson Servi-Car is fitted with a 1250cc overhead valve engine and a solid rear axle. Four swamp buggies started in the trial.” Reading the main body text though, it says: “The sidecar award was won easily by Kimball and Kurcher driving an extensively converted Harley-Davidson Servi-Car – a single front wheel commercial tricycle. Among the many modifications are substitution of a 900cc overhead-valve…

There’s a story I always tell, how, every year for at least a decade (or so it seems) I go to Founders’ Day and, every year I get in the car/van to come home (I never go by motorcycle from where I now live; it’s basically the whole way on the A14, that’s the journey, no fun on a bike and always have things to take/bring back) and I realise the backs of my calves are horribly sunburnt, as they rub on the seat after I settle in to the drive back. And every time, I think: “Remember next year, put sunblock on the back of the legs.” But it wasn’t the case this year, as far from the usual sunshine, we instead had grey skies and intermittent showers, although…

First Sunday in July (this year it was July 6) is the traditional occasion when Brooklands Museum marks the two (and three) wheel side of the history of the pioneering race circuit. As it’s now 86 years since the last races took place, surviving race bikes, the awe-inspiring remains of much of the circuit, and film footage help reimagine scenes in the circuit’s heyday. Motorcycle Day helps to add some life and further colour as hundreds of visitors arrive, albeit mostly on more modern bikes – a steady flow of arrivals that continued even as proceedings got under way. The mix of trade stands, club gatherings and individual efforts created a glorious array of machinery from all eras. If you had only the slightest interest in motorcycles, there was plenty…

As the old saying goes: ‘Seek and you shall find’. It can be taken literally here – in the winter of 1997-1998, I wrote a book for the Belgian publisher Luc Freson, ‘BMW: 75 years modern motorcycles’, in Dutch. For this, all-round-racer Piet Knijnenburg (who died in May 2017 at the age of 98) wrote the foreword. After 1945, Piet was a 12 time Dutch champion on motorcycles, and several of these championships he won on one of his R51RS BMWs. He owned three of them at one time; the numbers 4, 10 and 15. He raced them solo, but also won with a sidecar attached to an R66 and even scrambles. Piet was an all-round sportsman and won three gold medals at several International Six Days (ISDTs), including on…

As a child, I was obsessed with comics, from The Beano and Oink! to Batman, 2000 AD and Toxic. In 1991, my mum took me to a comic convention in London, where I saw an advert for the Japanese animation Akira. Depicted was the main hero Kaneda power sliding his sleek, red motorcycle against a Tokyo skyline; it immediately grabbed me. Over time, I realised this machine’s design had influenced me long before I started illustrating motorcycles, and, surprisingly, it all began with a frog. Luigi Colani’s Frog Motorcycle Luigi Colani, was a visionary German designer, whose work blurred the boundaries between art, engineering and futurism. Born in Berlin in 1928, Colani became known for his radical, biodynamic designs inspired by the natural world and deemed ergonomically superior to traditional…

The British military adopted Triumph motorcycles, along with rivals, at the outbreak of the First World War. Initially, the Triumphs were either single speeders or had three-speed hub gears with inboard clutch, and starting was by cycle-type pedals. Then, from 1915 to 1918 the Coventry maker supplied 30,000 Triumph Model Hs to the British Military and its Allies. The H sported an in-house 4hp (550cc) single-cylinder side-valve engine mounted in traditional rigid frame, with Triumph’s patented, rocking action front fork; and forks apart, it was a case of so far, so traditional. Triumph’s masterstroke was to fit the new Sturmey-Archer three-speed countershaft gearbox, with outboard multiplate clutch and kick-starter. Thus, the DRs’ ‘Trusty’ was born. Like the Triumph, the Sturmey-Archer countershaft gearbox wasn’t the first, but it was robust, well…