Innehållsförteckning för May 2024 från Real Classic

We recently enjoyed a day out at the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum. A very atypical museum, operated by enthusiasts who seem to be happily tinkering with old iron irrespective of the presence or absence of visitors. It's a cross between Ogri's shed and a 1950s breakers’ yard. FULL of interesting stuff you'll not see anywhere else. A Rocket 3 powered chopper? Twin engined A10? All human life is there… Morgan Rue, member So many people have recommended this museum that I cannot understand why we've never actually visited it! Thanks, Morgan. Frank W…

A century ago in the fledgling days of the motorcycle industry, American-made motorcycles led the world in sophistication of design, with several companies producing four-cylinder models for their customers. These sat firmly at odds with the often ricketylooking singles and twins produced by others among the 300 or so US manufacturers of the pre-WW1 era, all but a handful of them destined not to survive the nineteen-teens. Two manufacturers stood out among the array of Early Americans. Pierce was the first to put a four-cylinder model into production in 1909, but lack of in-house design expertise as well as a high price brought about the company's demise in 1914. The two Scottish-born Henderson brothers brought their own quite different four-cylinder Model B to the marketplace in 1912, which proved to…

None of us had any say in when we were born, nor when we might subsequently enter the classic motorcycle scene. A number of us enthusiasts not only started young, say in our early teens, but are still taking an active part in motorcycling in our latter years. Back then, when we embarked on our riding careers, the most accessible (ie. cheapest) mounts dated from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s and were about 20 to 30 years old at that time. Everything moves on in temporal terms, with the cheapest old bikes probably currently being at the clapped-out end of the Chinese lightweight market. A 1937 Rudge Special 500 came the way of the writer, then aged 15, in late 1962 for about £5. With the writer and his…

PART TWO If you recall, last month we ended on a bit of a low. It wasn't just this project but a whole combination of factors; other stuff was going on in my life, and I had the MaBSA build on the go as well. I'd broken my golden rule of only ever doing one project at once. But the fact remained that the Starfire project itself was having a very good go at doing my head in. It was quite a strange feeling. I rarely leave the shed in anything other than a good mood. Even when there are problems (and believe me, they can be legion), I generally look upon them as the exciting and challenging part of bike building, working out ways to do what's never been…

RealClassic TRIUMPH 6T THUNDERBIRD Even after a truly depressingly number of years spent messing about with old bikes, I am still unsure why it is that I get along so well with iron-head engines. Why should a cylinder head cast in iron make for a more pleasant engine than an otherwise mostly identical unit wearing a head cast in lighter, more shiny alloy? Casting my occasionally reliable memory back down some of those years confirms that iron-head G80 Matchlesses are somehow more charming than their later light-headed offspring, while the iron-head plunger Flash from Small Heath fights a desirability contest well with Norton's excellent Model 7. Drifting down memory highway is compulsive, I find, especially when I can dredge up photos of many of the bikes I've ridden since time immemorial.…

I've just read Frank's article on the A10 in RC240 and it brought back many memories, mostly good, of my 1952 plunger Flash. I sold it about 10 years ago and, as usual, wish I hadn't. Lovely bikes. Chris Alvey, member Frank's excellent article brought back many memories of my BSA Golden Flash. This bike was purchased by me in 1958 froma car dealer in Croydon for the princely sum of £169 on hire purchase, with my dad as guarantor. The bike, also a 1954 with swinging arm, was identical to Frank's test bike apart from a) the colour (mine was yucky beige), and b) the petrol tank was a leftover from the plunger models, so it had the winged tank badge in lieu of the large, roundel badge. I…

RealClassic ROYAL ENFIELD HIMALAYAN I had a test ride, was suitably impressed and… I took the plunge and bought a new bike! This would be my first new bike for 17 years, although it wasn't entirely brand new; a three months old, pre-registered machine with a mere 40 miles on the clock. I part exchanged my 1986 Harley 1200 which I've owned for several years. I enjoyed fixing and then riding the big, air-cooled Harley but struggled to keep its chromework in good condition. I vowed that my next machine would have a lot less to polish – and indeed it has hardly any chrome at all. I advertised the Harley for £2500 and was inundated with interested folk tempted to dip their toes in the cheap, classic Harley pond, but…

You might expect to be reading about my own ZZR600 right about now but – patience please folks – I feel a bit of background and history may help first. By the early 1980s the motorcycle market had, in many people's opinion, become more then a bit staid. For most people the aspirational bikes were still large capacity Japanese fours. But bikes like the Suzuki GSX1100 and Kawasaki GPz1100 were possessed of not just massive amounts of bhp but equally massive amounts of bulk and mass – but with frames and brakes that couldn't cope with either. The next capacity category down, the 750s, were often regarded by more seasoned riders as the best compromise in real life. Usually physically smaller and far easier to handle, they were nearly as…

PO BOX 66 BUDE EX23 9ZX REMEMBERING MR MINTON I first met David Minton at the east London BSAOC in 1962. I was introduced to him with two other friends, Eric and Dai, and I was given the name Dusty – too many Daves in the club! I had an Avon Streamliner on a Golden Flash: get the connection? Dusty? Dustbin! The four of us bonded and two of us are still in distant touch. Dave Minton at the time had just got his new A65 and sidecar. Sadly it was stolena week later. He then acquired a Vincent and Steib chair. I can still see his devoted wife Eileen hanging onto the chair for grim death as Dave dida 90-degree left turn into his street as we rode back…

I am very grateful for the replies to my query on the Rudge. Please pass on my thanks to Nigel Stennett-Cox, Tony Pearson and Martyn Hillier. The machine registrar at Rudge Club says ‘You are correct that Glamorgan County Council issued the registration. The DNY series were issued from March through to the end of June1938. On examination of the photograph I am certain that it is a 500cc Rudge Special.’ Thanks once again for your help. RealClassic is my favourite read these days. Martin Richardson You're welcome, Martin – and in fact your enquiry prompted Nigel to tell us more about his own Rudge, so it all worked out rather wonderfully! Rowena…

Fats Waller, Elvis Presley, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Taylor Swift and Britney Spears all have something in common – the BSA Gold Star. How so? Well… Back in ‘38, Wal Handley may well have listened to Fats as he rode the newest sports machine from BSA. It can't be a coincidence that the brilliance of Elvis complemented the superb DBD34 in 1956. ‘Knock Three Times’ might well have been a big end prophecy for the ill-fated B50SS in ‘71, and the latest international version of the most glittering star in the firmament is perfectly suited to the worldwide appeal and glamour of Taylor Swift. Yes indeed, each generation seems to get the music and the Gold Star it deserves. However, before the recent Indian-led resurrection of this most famous name,…

RealClassic 1914 HENDERSON FOUR MODEL C Although beaten to the honour of creating America's first fourcylinder 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 was a financial whiz, brother Bill proved to be one of the finest engineers in the USA's early days of motorcycle R&D. The luxuriousness and quality of his designs outranked anything yet made by a European manufacturer, resulting in the company's products being christened as ‘two-wheeled Cadillacs’. After building a single Model A prototype in 1911 with belt final drive, Henderson Motorcycle Co.…

RealClassic NORTON MODEL 50 I have always had a soft spot for Norton pushrod singles. Many, many years ago, in 1974 actually, my slightly dodgy, on and off friend Mike the Boat promised me that if I could get his old red Norton ES2 going I could have it. Slightly surprisingly, given my sketchy mechanical experience, I did get it going, at which point Mike immediately rescinded the promise and reclaimed it for himself. The Blighter! Since then I have had one or two short term Model 50s and ES2s. When I read Editor Westworth's test of his own, scruffy but very original Model 50 in RC153 (it was on the cover) I started to hanker after the Norton single experience once more. In fact I hankered so much that I…

Our story starts several years ago with a family friend, Alan, who knew that I rode motorcycles. On one visit, he opened his rather damp and dilapidated garden shed, moved some of the detritus of years and revealed a sorry-looking and very rusty motorcycle holding up the shed from within. The machine had sat undisturbed for a good number of years after an unsuccessful attempt to restore it. All that seemed to have been done was brushing some black paint onto the tank and the loss of one of the tank badges, so I thought ‘restoration’ was an ambitious term! Alan didn't divulge who'd attempted this ‘restoration.’ Removing more stuff revealed that it was a Norton twin in a state of decay. The Norton looked like it could be a…