Innehållsförteckning för November 2016 från Classic Bike Guide

“LOOK ON MY WORKS, Ye Mighty Motorcyclists, and Marvel!” is a phrase that might, conceivably, have occurred to Fabio Taglioni as he contemplated the machine he’d designed and which was first revealed as a prototype at Milan in 1979. Ing Taglioni had every right to be proud of what became the basis for Ducati motorcycles to this day. The sleek V-twin still attracts attention wherever it goes, and you don’t have to be a hedge fund manager to acquire one. During the heady days of the 1970s, Ducati were heavily involved in road racing and the company’s success included Mike Hailwood’s win at the Isle of Man in 1978. Their Grand Prix 500 fared less well and was scrapped midway through the decade, although some aspects of its power plant…

The Hesketh story – first on four wheels, then two – is so unlikely that its treatment in the recent Hollywood hit movie Rush might have seemed hopelessly improbable if the following précis was ever submitted as a script scenario. But, in fact, it’s true – all too true! Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, the 3rd Baron Hesketh, KBE, PC, was born in 1950, and inherited the title of Lord Hesketh at the age of four. The family’s great wealth came from the first Baron’s marriage to a rich American woman whose family owned huge chunks of Californian real estate, as well as a large slice of Wells Fargo and the oil company which later became Chevron Texaco. However, this was held in trust for Alexander, who didn’t inherit it until turning…

Also unleashed at Mash’s Corsican wingding was an eighth-litre commuter with retro-cum-sporty looks that will likely appeal to the sons and daughters of classic bike buffs, if not the buffs themselves. Somewhat curiously christened the Black 7 – for having five gears and some 11.6bhp there isn’t anything particularly seven-ish about it – the bike nevertheless radiates a certain chutzpah that this writer found beguiling. For starters, its 780mm seat height and 1350mm wheelbase make it a full-fat motorcycle rather than the rather toy-like entity that some Chinese lightweights appear to be, and although its Suzuki-derived, SOHC, 57 x 48.8mm engine delivers just those 11-and-a-bit ponies, the Delphi fuel-injection ensures that they go to work with huge zeal. Riding hard on the throttle, often right up to the 10,000rpm redline,…

WHEN THIS TR5 was built in 1956, a visitor to Triumph’s Meriden works would have found the highest-paid workers in the Coventry area, with boundless pride in the machines they were making. The TR5 Trophy fed a near insatiable demand from the critical American market for off-road sports bikes. These were dual-sport machines which could be used for serious off-road racing, trail riding or road use. There are two magic keys to the TR5, essential to the machine’s success. It had to be light. It also had to make the correct sort of power for off-road use. To meet both requirements a bronze cylinder head might have been the answer, but this was expensive and heavy. By 1947 Triumph had gained a lot of experience in casting alloy heads and…

HARDLY A HARLEY I’VE OWNED MY XLCR since 1991. Wanted one when Iwas kid, bought one in the States and shipped it back. I doubt there are many bikes that create the same intense feeling of riding a motorbike as the XLCR does. It’s like riding a wild beast. It’s nothing to do with what the engine’s power curve looks like on a graph or having the latest trick spec equipment. The visceral, animal feeling it creates is enormous. Sohow does it do it? Distinctive good looks: sexy, naughty and rock and roll, it shakes a bit at speed and makes a load of noise. But, loads of bikes do that and don’t excite like an XLCR. The secret ingredient is its ergonomics. Before the XLCR there were tourers, café…

“I was completely gobsmacked when I learned I’d won the auction” Dave can’t quite recall when he first clapped eyes on a Triton, and never in his wildest dreams did he ever think he’d own one. Dave remembers his father enthusing about his police Bonneville but Dave, by his own admission, was ‘weaned on Japanese bikes’. In fact, it was only recently that Dave rekindled his teenage interest with British machines, and in particular with Meriden Triumphs. Dave’s quintessential Triton came to him following a blasé offer he made while killing time on eBay. “I was looking for a Meriden Bonneville when this Triton popped onto my screen,” he told CBG. “I liked its clean lines and aggressive styling and I fired in a modest bid, not really expecting to…

Isolated on our little island, we had no reason to concern ourselves with the last sad days of a once great American motorcycle manufacturer. Yet responsibility for that downfall had, in many respects, one foot planted firmly on our side of the Atlantic. Back in 1950, very few British motorcyclists would have been aware that the Indian Motocycle Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, was going to the wall. But that was the year company president Ralph Rogers called it a day at a heated meeting of the board and creditors, and walked away from what had become, for him, a rescue bid too far. Stepping further back in history, you have to understand that Indian had not reinvested in the good times when it should have done and later, at the…

AS WE NEVER tire of telling you, the Norton Commando was awarded the UK’s ‘Machine of the Year’ accolade five times on the trot, from 1968 to 1972. Which was great news for the beleaguered British bike industry, but it posed a pretty problem. Just what do you do for an encore, when your next generation sportsbike is resolutely welded to the drawing board? After the ghastly debacle of the highly-tuned self-destructing Combat engine, it was obvious to the engineers at Norton Villiers that if they wanted their venerable air-cooled pushrod twin to supply more torque at rider-rewarding rev levels then there could be no substitute for cubes. So for 1973 the Commando 750 engine was enlarged again (it started life as a500 Dominator, remember), bored out by 4mm on…

Nothing succeeds like success, and English entrepreneur Paul Sleeman’s achievement of selling all 24 examples of the limited edition Hesketh 24 V-twin streetfighter costing £35,000 each (including 20% VAT) with which he brought the aristocratic British historic marque back to the marketplace in 2014, has now resulted in the debut of a follow-up model – the more retro-themed Sixties style Hesketh Sonnet café racer. In doing so, it confirms the restoration of a brand to the marketplace whose CV is so improbable that it’s worthy of a Hollywood screenplay – as indeed transpired in the recent Formula 1 movie Rush. Powered by an uprated version of the same US-built S&S air/oil-cooled ohv pushrod 56.25º V-twin X-Wedge motor adorning the 24, the Sonnet is a continuation of its earlier sister bike’s…

Having already proved that they could up the stakes in the Chinese import game, Mash Motorcycles have added two new models which will likely further undermine the cheap ’n’ cheerful image that damns with faint praise our view of that country’s motorcycle manufacturers. And so welcome to the TT40 – a fully developed café racer model which admittedly uses the same 397cc SOHC engine that Shineray, one of China’s biggest manufacturers, originally built for Honda’s GB400-TT – a smaller, Japan-only version of the undeniably café racer-ish XBR500 we got back in the Eighties. Interestingly if not oddly, its 4-valve, SOHC engine’s 85 x 70mm and 8.8:l comp ratio are dissimilar to both the GB400-TT’s (at 84 x 72mm and 9.2:1) and the XBR500’s (92 x 75mm, and 9:1), but such…

MOTO LAVERDA OFBreganze always had aknack for turning risk into reward. New to the industry in postwar 1948, just three seasons went by before tuned versions of Laverda’s first production single dominated the hotly contested sub-100cc classes in Italian cross-country events. An early player in the 1960s big-bore movement, the Laverda family’s new twin had the stuff to dominate production endurance racing for nearly four years. A decade later, thanks largely to the UK’s Slater Brothers, Laverda’s third major production variant pushed a trio of pistons and twin overhead cams to claim open-class superiority in an industry filthy with well-funded competitors. This average puts Laverda among history’s greats, sharing with those other legendary names the talent and bravado to earn it. Looking at the visual similarities, you can trace a…