Features

All Brit bikes leak oil… but they don’t have to, writes Tim Britton. There is no real reason why an old motorcycle should leak oil. Lots of them do, though, and perhaps a run through the possible causes and what to do about it isn’t such a bad idea. Yes, I know there will be…

Continue reading »

With a history stretching back to 1958, when the roads swarmed with sidecar outfits, the South Yorkshire Sidecar Club has clung to its existence through good times and bad for 59 years. John Askham tells the story. The South Yorkshire Sidecar Club was formed in February 1958 by six people who met at 25 Stanhope…

Continue reading »

While little cannot already have been written about the Ariel Square Four, it takes only a brief look through the Mortons Archive to reignite the intrigue this distinguished British design has always generated, writes Pete Kelly. To say that the public unveiling of the overhead-camshaft 500cc Ariel Square Four in the autumn of 1930 caused…

Continue reading »

Learning from his two bike-mad brothers, Ken Partington from Manchester knew everything about motorcycles by the time he bought his first bike, a 98cc James Comet, at the age of 16 – or so he thought – until an embarrassing confrontation with a dealer in a bike shop taught him otherwise. At various times during…

Continue reading »

Putting aside the confusing nomenclature of Suzuki’s model range in the 1960s and 70s, the 90mph X5 200cc two-stroke sports twin and SB200 commuter variant were cracking little bikes that needed to be kept on the boil to get the best out of them, writes Steve Cooper. Assuming that you’ve been following our Japanese 175-200…

Continue reading »

From our 2016 archive Time was slowly running out for Associated Motor Cycles when it launched its new-style 250cc overhead-valve singles in 1958 – but were the sturdy and neat-looking AJS and Matchless models the best they could have offered? asks Pete Kelly. By the time Associated Motor Cycles launched its apparently unit-construction 250cc overhead-valve…

Continue reading »

FROM OUR ARCHIVES For more than 60 years P&M, whose well-designed motorcycles became known as Panthers in the early 1920s, provided sensible down-to-earth transport along with a surprising amount of innovation, particularly during the inter-war years. This is their story, with research and photographic material from the Mortons Archive. Renowned for decades for their tireless…

Continue reading »

After hearing about Triumph specialist Supreme Motorcycles’ sell out to Draganfly Motorcycles in Suffolk, Mick Payne visits the owners of the now vastly-expanded British bikes business to learn about their plans, and is encouraged by what he finds. ‘Le roi est mort, vive le roi’ is said to have originated in 1422 upon the death,…

Continue reading »

Instead of printing a long missive about the life of John Surtees CBE, who sadly passed away on March 10, Old Bike Mart has decided to remember his motorcycle racing career in several outstanding photographs from the Mortons Archive. We suggest instead that readers wishing to pay tribute to one of the true heroes of…

Continue reading »

How did a well-made, nippy, economical and – yes, oiltight – motorcycle made in China come to carry the hallowed AJS name? Pete Kelly asks the questions, and Nick Brown provides the answers. Could you tell OBM readers something about your background in business and motorcycling, and your father, Fluff? Fluff was employed at Cotton…

Continue reading »