Features

FROM OUR ARCHIVES Pete Kelly rifles through Mortons’ Archives and turns up the following road test reports, from 1958 and 1960 respectively, which show how the motorcycle press of the day rated Royal Enfield’s 496cc Meteor Minor de Luxe parallel twin and 499cc Bullet single. Right, you’ve got the deposit together (or at least have…

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Four years ago Glenn Jenkins hardly knew what a Suzuki RE5 rotary looked like – but now he has a collection of seven of them, including a stunning café racer! Pete Kelly travelled to a village in Yorkshire to see for himself. ollowing in the footsteps of NSU’s Wankel-engined Ro80 car, whose 10-year production span…

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Everyone remembers the Crusaders, Bullets, Meteors and Constellations that were the flag-bearers of Royal Enfield’s Redditch factory, but they also made some pretty decent two-strokes as well. In a 1963 road test report on the 249cc Royal Enfield Turbo Twin, The Motor Cycle’s late Midlands editor Bob Currie put his finger on it in the…

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Old Bike Mart visits Classic Bike Shop in Redditch, where Mike Rogers, his wife Kerrie and son Archie are all part of the enthusiastic team continuing a long-established family tradition steeped in motorcycle dealing and bike jumbling – but in this internet age their business is sending quality-made spares for British motorcycles all over the…

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Pete Kelly visits Chris Davies at West Midlands Triumph Tiger Cub specialists Meriden Off Road, to learn about his latest product plus preparations for his forthcoming speed record attempt on Pendine Sands in South Wales. Triumph Terrier and Tiger Cub machines must still be coming out of the woodwork, for ever since Chris Davies set…

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Back in 1980, BMW introduced a new motorcycle concept in the R80G/S, the G/S standing for Gelande/Strasse, or basically cross-country and road, writes Mick Payne. It proved a highly-successful model with iterations still being manufactured today, but for Keith Wash, the head man at Hedingham, the rugged looks sparked a few ideas of his own,…

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Harry Stanistreet recalls a nightmare trip to the Elephant Rally with his young wife Lesley and a group of friends in 1970, when just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong – but the kindness of people they met along the way ensured that everything turned out all right in the end. The…

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Following Suzuki’s sometimes puzzling marketing philosophy of the 1970s, Steve Cooper traces the birth and development of the GT185 two-stroke twin. Back in the day, the way in which Suzuki divvied up new models was somewhat haphazard to say the least. Some models enjoyed long life spans and often morphed into more modern machines, the…

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Sun motorcycles were manufactured from 1911 until 1961, but their roots go back to the Victorian Birmingham brass foundry of James Parkes & Son. We delved into our archive to show some of the motorcycles, autocycles and scooters that proudly carried the Sun name. The ‘Sun’ brand name, which first appeared in 1885, was inspired by…

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