Innehållsförteckning för December 2016 från Classic Bike Guide

UNDOUBTEDLY THE MECCA for classic motorcycles, Stafford hosts two world-class shows in April and October. The autumn Carole Nash Mechanics Show leans more towards later classics, showcasing some of the best vintage Oriental machinery around, but there was plenty to please all tastes with machines dating back to 1906 on display cheek-by-jowl with ton-up Triumph twins, off-road warriors, café racers and stock-as-a-rock restorations from every decade. Suzukis stole the spotlight with a special display in a dedicated marquee that featured Barry Sheene’s two world championship-winning RG500s. Fittingly, the judges decided that the Best In Show award should also go to a Suzi – Heidi Cockerton’s rare 1965 K11T, which took pride of place on the VJMC stand. Meanwhile, the National Motorcycle Museum was giving away a Norton F1 rotary roadbike…

DUCATI’S FIRST STAB at a mainstream retro machine, the Hailwood replica MH900E was gorgeous but eye-wateringly expensive. It was followed up by the Paul Smart-inspired 1000LE, which featured a fabulous motor – torquey, powerful and with a very anthropomorphic throb: authentically classic and yet thoroughly modern. The six-speed engine was 992cc and produced a very acceptable 92bhp at 8000rpm, as well as a just as impressive 91Nm of torque. But this wasn’t a machine for married, middle-aged riders, not with its low bars, rearsets and solo saddle. Finally, in 2006, out came the GT1000 SportClassic, the first bike Ducati should have made in its retro range. Gone were the rather affected single-sided swinging arm of the Paul Smart rep and the café racer riding position of the Sport, to be…

It’s 7am and still dark when I arrive at Patrick Rouger’s house in a sleepy village deep in the countryside south of Paris. Patrick welcomes me with a bear hug, puts the coffee on to percolate and places fresh bread, jam and a huge knife on the table. The coffee smells good, but I’d have rather had another hour in bed. Patrick takes his time over breakfast, but I’m getting restless. I’ve travelled 300 miles to ride a turbocharged Münch Mammut and after a night in a cheap hotel I’m itching to see the monster. He finally finishes his third coffee and leads the way to the garage, swinging open the wooden doors and switching on the light. I’m stunned. There’s the silver Turbo, massive and imposing under the flickering…

SINCE IT EMIGRATED to China back in 1984, Zündapp has become the forgotten brand in Germany’s two-wheeled history book. Yet, after commencing bike production in 1922, it was for many years the country’s largest motorcycle manufacturer – albeit postwar in the Western half only – and as recently as 1977 produced as many as 115,000 bikes in a single year, before sales of its, by then, predominantly two-stroke range suddenly slumped in the face of Japanese competition, sending it, just seven years, later into the hands of the liquidator. But for more than six decades Zündapp was at the forefront of the German motorcycle industry, and it surely ranks alongside BSA, Norton, Indian, Moto Guzzi, Triumph, Gilera and Harley-Davidson, as well as its BMW rival, as one of the most…

THE THUNDERBIRD TITLE has been used on several Triumph motorcycles since 1949. The first of its kind was a basic 4-stroke twin with a rigid rear end, turning out a claimed 34bhp. Certainly, since those far off days, bikes have evolved into much much more, and this prime example from 1995 is truly FAB – if I may borrow an expression from the well known puppet series (did anyone ever find out what FAB actually meant?). The Thunderbird morphed into different bikes through to 1982’s excellent short-stroke TR65 Thunderbird, and then of course as we all know, Triumph Meriden came to a somewhat ignominious end. Fortunately the Triumph baton was speedily picked up, and production recommenced at Hinckley using several old familiar names, and the Thunderbird, in a gutsier and…

A BRUTAL BLAST from the past, Triumph’s new Bonneville Bobber is also right on the zeitgeist in its minimalist style and its muscular stance. Stripped-back streetbike custom classics are certainly all the rage, but the 1200 twin also cleverly adopts styling cues from the iconic Speed Twin and Triumph Tiger of the 1940s. Check out the neatly disguised monoshock on the modern bike; the frame rails that mimic the old bike’s rigid rear end; the tight radius of the rear mudguard; the profile of the engine barrel and heads, and even the appearance of a pre-unit separate gearbox – that’s styling only, the engine is entirely modern. The Bonnie Bobber goes to show that the simple lines of classic motorcycling never go out of fashion. However, beneath that timeless exterior…

THE ONGOING REVIVAL of Britain’s historic motorcycle brands has saved the biggest and in some ways the best until last, with the news that the rights to the BSA name and associated intellectual property in the brand have been purchased by one of India’s biggest industrial conglomerates, the Mahindra Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, Mahindra is a major producer of all types of vehicles in India, and the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world. Since 2008 it has attempted to forge arole in India’s huge but intensely competitive two-wheeler market, without notable success. Now, in a change of strategy, in adeal signed on October 20 with David Bennett, CEO of UK-based Regal Engineering (which until now held the BSA trademark), Mahindra has signalled that it’s now targeting premium sectors of…

AFFORDABLE AND NUMEROUS, it’s not too difficult to find a bargain Indian-built kick-start Bullet. That’s why these bikes make a great introduction to classic motorcycling. They typically haven’t clocked up many miles and can be bought for two grand or less: absurdly good value for a reliable, recent motorcycle. You may already know that Royal Enfield of Redditch granted the Indian government a licence to manufacture Bullets in the late 1950s for the military and police forces. By the early 1960s Enfield India (Madras) was building Bullets for India’s home market. Gradually, these bikes began to be exported to the UK, initially individually and in small batches and then through a series of official importers and specialist dealers. At first the fit, finish and material quality of the Indian-built bikes…

NINETY-NINE YEARS AGO on September 17, 1917, as the Great War was drawing to an end, Germany’s Zünder und Apparatebau GmbH concern –literally, ‘Igniter and Apparatus Construction’, conflated to Zündapp – was founded in Nuremberg (Nürnberg). Its purpose was to make fuses for the artillery guns then pounding the Allied lines on the Western Front, but little more than one year later on November 11, 1918 the Armistice was signed to bring the war to an end, and with it the reason for Zündapp’s existence. The company’s three founding partners comprised metalwork entrepreneur, Fritz Neumeyer, together with machine tool manufacturer, Thiel AG, and the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, Friedrich Krupp AG (later in 1999 to merge with Thyssen to form today’s vast ThyssenKrupp…

ZÜNDAPP WAS FOUNDED in 1917 and the marque’s 100th birthday is being celebrated at the Bremen Classic Motorshow in February next year. The show incorporates a special ‘From Everyman To World Champion’ display of 20 or more Zündapp models. This will illustrate the variety of vehicles built by the company, from affordable commuter bikes like the Derby to the luxurious flat-four K800, and the KS50 sports mopeds of the 1960s and 70s. Held over the weekend of February 3-5, 2017, the Bremen show extends through eight halls where more than 650 exhibitors and international dealers display vintage and classic cars and motorcycles, ‘young classics’ from the 1960s to 1990s, historic motorsports, memorabilia, accessories and spare parts from 12 different countries. A huge hall of 3000 square metres is dedicated to…

CONTINUING OUR THEME, Triumph’s 750 twins are an obvious choice for anyone contemplating the purchase of a first British classic bike. They don’t cost a fortune compared to the more prestigious earlier classics, so you can try an old Brit bike to see if you enjoy the experience without mortgaging the cat. There are heaps of 750 Triumphs on the market at any time, so you have plenty to pick and choose between. Spares supply is superb: there are several specialists dedicated to these machines and their development has continued in recent years, using modern technology to improve the electrics, comfort, steering and stopping. You can personalise one of these Triumph twins to your heart’s content… Production of the 750s started in 1973 with the twin-carb T140V Bonneville and the…

DESPITE THE DOMINATOR name, Norton’s first stab at a sporting twin didn’t exactly rule the postwar world. Designer Bert Hopwood built a bike that was rather more robust than the sparkling Triumph speedsters, but which had little in common with Norton’s glorious prewar sporting singles. An all-new 500cc twin from the marque with 21 TT wins to its credit was expected to be exceptional – and instead the new Dominator was merely proficient, reliable, well-made and mannerly. Consequently, the Model 7 was damned by faint praise. It “had a disappointing performance” according tomarque historian Mick Woollett. “It was fast but lacked the mid-range torque that the other twins had… It was nomatch for the already well-established Triumph Tiger 100. The Norton was overweight at 440lb – no less than 50lb…

Acquired taste can be a cruel mistress, and Yamaha’s V-Max is both. Or at least it was. Considered outrageous when it was first launched in 1985, its alleged 145bhp, 1149cc V-four engine was bigger and more powerful than almost anything else on the block. And with the fattest rear tyre known to man and weird-ass styling dominated by two alloy air scoops struck onto the fuel tank, the V-Max divided opinion. And in Britain for sure, there weren’t many of us on the ‘pro’ side of the fence. Especially when we got to ride it. Engineering-wise, the bike was designed for one thing: to go faster n’hell, a kind of road-legal dragster that would appeal to America’s hot-rod sensibilities, or as design project leader Akira Araki somewhat coyly noted: “A…

A village emerges as you roll back into England, crossing a border to leave a land where familiar roadsigns were suddenly bilingual. The village is mostly undeveloped, the road through it unimproved, unwidened. There’s a shop. Ared telephone box. Abench. This is the classic cliché. Pull up, switch off, dismount, sit and consider. Bees hum, metal ticks softly, cooling. The two tunes match each other, pacing themselves in the afternoon quiet. Looks like rain. But a light rain, nothing to get hung about. This is something rare – very rare. The bike’s probably familiar to you, even if you may never have actually seen one on the roads, never mind spent a decent time riding one. It’s a four cylinder British bike, and prior to the resurgence of Triumph a…

While British bikes dominated their home market and dictated motorcycle development for the first two-thirds of the 20th century, so the Japanese industry led the way from the late 1960s to the current day. That’s why you’ll find this guide is stuffed full of terms such as ‘ground-breaking’ and ‘innovative’ (although if the phrase ‘jewel-like’ sneaks in please take us out and shoot us). However, the revolution in two-wheeled technology which ripped up the old rule book didn’t happen overnight, and there are many – slightly dodgy, truth be told – transitional models along the way. Inevitably there are some humdrum, workaday ‘so what?’ motorcycles lurking among the genuinely astonishing trendsetters. The trick is to be able to tell them apart, and not pay Zed One money for a Z400J……