Innehållsförteckning för November 2022 från Real Classic

When you reach this issue’s letters pages, you will stumble across a whole chunk of mail replying to a simple question. None of the answers are exactly the same, as you might expect. In last month’s magazine, reader David Stracey expressed strong views on the lack of new bikes offered to riders of that certain age. His list of requirements was decently long, but his central demands were ‘light weight and being able to get both feet flat on the ground.’ I read the letter when it first landed, and I confess that I may have smiled a little, not least because I share the same physical restraints as many others of my personal antiquity and high mileage - not just aboard motorcycles. The main reason for that original smile…

RealClassic BSA MC4 PROTOTYPE The design offices and workshops of the British motorcycle factories of the 1950s, 60s and 70s were littered with promising designs which were supposed to transform the industry but came to nothing. Built by dedicated designers, engineers and apprentices, they include Norton’s Unified Twin, Bert Hopwood’s modular range of Triumphs, the BSA-Triumph Bandit / Fury twins, Triumph’s Thunderbird 3 and four-cylinder Quadrant and Ariel’s 10OOcc flat four version of the Leader. They were all, it was promised, going to keep dealers busy or, by the 1970s, to turn around falling sales. After assorted efforts these machines appeared in prototype forms (except for Hopwood’s modular efforts, which only existed on paper) and then vanished into the mists of time and dusty corners of motorcycle museums. Sadly, senior managers…

This type of Enfield single is among the earliest of the post-WW2 Bullets which first appeared in 1948/49. It already sports some mostly minor internal alterations to the initial design, which had been amended in several areas in the short space of time since its introduction. These were the first G2 Bullets, which replaced the pre-war designs that featured rigid frames, girder forks and totally separate gearboxes. The integral (but actually separate) oil tank still formed part of the crankcase castings, but now lived completely behind the crankshaft, rather than in front and behind it. Likewise the oil filler cap with its integral dipstick relocated to the rear rather than in front of the cylinder. The 4-speed gearbox was bolted directly to the rear of the engine / oil tank…

YELLOW PERIL Cast your mind back to the early 1970s and recall the Commando 750 production racers, those street-legal homologation specials which were individually assembled in the factory race shop. All manner of upgraded internals went into those motors; components which were matched, machined, blueprinted and balanced to push the power output by 20% compared to the standard 745cc roadster. That would take a proddie racer to 130mph, maybe more, with test rider / development engineer Peter Williams stretched from the solo saddle across the supersize fuel tank. The majority of these machines left the workshop equipped with a race fairing, uprated brakes and suspension - and a dazzling paint job which inspired legions of imitators over the years. Exactly how many of these beasts were built is impossible to…

RealClassic TWIN V SINGLE During the 1950s and into the early 60s the choice in Britain for larger capacity motorcycles centred around the big British manufacturers. Norton, Royal Enfield, AMC,Triumph, BSA and Velocette were the obvious options for a middleweight sportsbike. The Japanese invasion had not quite started, while Italian bikes were pretty expensive and, well, a bit exotic. The smaller Italians weren’t really considered’ real bikes’so were a bit thin on the ground. That despite the fact that some of the Italian technology was well in advance of the home market industry, with unit construction engines, overhead cams, oil-tight engines and high performance from those smaller motors. Instead, British riders looked to popular models like the pair we have here: the Triumph Tiger 100 and the Velocette Venom. Both…

RealClassic HARLEY MÉTISSE 1000 Generalisation it may be, but most special-framed Harleys are built for show, not go. Whether aimed at Daytona’s annual Rat’s Hole Hogfest or your local equivalent of the Chelsea Cruise, the idea of wrapping a special chassis round an H-D V-twin, ancient or modern, generally has only one objective: making it look cool by making it look different, usually in stretched, lowered or other visually extreme form. The idea that anyone might actually re-chassis a Harley in order to improve the handling is just so much Hogwash: hey - this is Milwaukee’s finest, right? If God intended Harleys to handle, he’d have made Willie G. marry Tamburini’s sister. What you see is what you get: now go ahead and customise the hell out of it, just like…

RealClassic KAWASAKI W800 The great motorcycling public have sequentially clamoured after sport bikes, sport-tourers, cruisers, ADV bikes and now - you guessed it modern retros. As the riding public ages, gets weak in the knees and is no longer quite as interested in blistering speed, modern motorcycles which ape the appearance of the bikes we grew up with, yet have all the advantages of modern reliability, sufficient performance and brakes that actually work, are oddly appealing. They’re the ‘new’ thing. Trade in that aging BMW GS1150: you never did get to go around the world or even get the wheel rims dusty. A nice modern retro-classic is what you need now. I saw this impulse in action just a couple of weeks ago as my friend Norm closes in on his…

RealClassic NSU 250 REBUILD PART THE FIRST I’m a bit of a sucker when it comes to motorcycles that are just that little bit different. So when a collection came up for auction not a million miles from home I just had to go and look. The bike which first attracted my attention was a BMW R27 - not that R27s are really very different, but it’s a model I’ve owned in past and I quite liked the idea of another. Large, heavy bikes are losing their appeal, so I thought it might be just the thing to ride around locally. It soon became clear that I wasn’t the only person thinking such thoughts and the bidding soon sailed past the estimate, with the result that it ended up belonging to…

LIVING with LEGENDS Whethera fan of the spinning propeller brand or not, there must be very few riders who wouldn’t recognise the silhouette of this motorcycle and fail to identify it as a BMW. After all, it’s got the sticky out cylinders, shaft drive, a huge petrol tank and that resting arrogance only German twins seem to have. None of those ‘curves for the sake of them’Italian bikes of the period are renowned for, just lines that resemble an assemblage of boxes, loosely piled on top of each other. And it’s got one of those huge BMW fairings that they seem to stick on everything nowadays. Ahh yes, that fairing. BMW are the sort of company that, while unafraid of innovation, see little point in discarding good engineering practices over…

RealClassic MATCHLESS G12 When you are in your prime, it never crosses your mind that in old age you may still find yourself on your knees fixing yet another of your ancient motorcycles. This time I had dismantled a complete engine for what transpired to be no reason at all; the fault lay elsewhere. Parallel twin, 360-degree British bikes are infamous for their vibrations, and many motorcycle manufacturers tried various ideas to try to minimise this inherent fault. Norton used rubber engine mounts, Matchless and AJS tried a central main bearing on their twins to better support the crankshaft. My 1959 G12 650 is typical of the breed and vibrates in spite of that extra crank support. When I ran a 2001 Hinckley Bonnie I couldn’t believe how smooth it was…

FRANK WESTWORTH RealClassic Time to fit that front wheel with its shiny bright new Avon tyre, then. Tyres are not cheap! If I’d expected that a new tyre to fit a 1965 bike would be available at 1965 prices, then I was soon corrected. It is of course almost always possible to pay a few shillings less by buying a tyre online and fitting the thing yourself. Happily, I have a great local motorcycle establishment - Ace Mosickles - and they do it all, including making the crucial coffee. Awesome stuff. Stimulating. Falling asleep is unlikely. While the wheel is off, I took a good look and a ruler to the brake linings. Why? Because the lever comes right back to the bar, and the cable hasn’t stretched, because a new…