Features

AJS model 8 It’s a relative term really – Lightweight, it all depends upon what it is you're judging it against. For Associated Motor Cycles, it meant lighter than the range of AJS traditional 350 and 500 singles that had seen them through from 1945 to the mid 1950s; good solid British style bikes that…

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Royal Enfield Interceptor – first of the superbikes It was with their 1963 UK model range, that Royal Enfield included the biggest big parallel twin, so far seen on the home market, The move was perhaps surprising, for the famous old Redditch company was already at the forefront of the Cubes battle, with their 700…

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The Campbells on their Coventry Eagles in 1938 It was in 1938 that Sir Malcolm Campbell, racing motorist and three times World's Land Speed Record holder on four wheels, rediscovered the joys of motorcycling. In a letter to the Coventry-Eagle Cycle & Motor Company, Sir Malcolm wrote "All my old zest has now come back…

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Velocette Venom Clubman They first appeared as full production models in the company's catalogue for 1960; previously the special equipment to turn the 350 Viper and 500 Venom into Clubman's racing machines had been available in the form of `extras'; parts supplied to order, for the sporting rider. The specification differences between the new Clubman…

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Sunbeam 500cc ohc twin S7 deluxe The Sunbeam name was always closely associated with 'quality' and when the very first motorcycle to bear the name left the Wolverhampton factory in 1912, it was to the highest possible standards of the time – a gentleman's machine. The original makers however, were no longer the masters, when…

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Catalogue description of 1939 Red Panther It’s hard to imagine in today's money motivated age, that the manufacturers of anything so complicated as a motorcycle, with its many moving parts and precise machining requirements could be content with a profit of just 7/6d (37½p) per bike! But it did happen during the depression years of…

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Sporty Douglas When Douglas released their first announcement about their post-war twin to coincide with the Bristol Engineering Exhibition in September 1945, it created quite a sensation. Although the company had remained faithful to their flat twin engine, it was now mounted transversely in the frame, and not in line with it as had been…

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1934 250cc two port OEC There was something about the word Duplex that really seemed to get them going, down in the OEC works on the South Coast of England. It was duplex with everything when it came to advertising their products – maybe twice as safe, twice as steady and, perhaps, twice as desirable…

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Piatti scooter The austerity years in Britain, following World War II, were times when personal trans­port was out of the financial reach of a large part of the population. A car was a dreamed of luxury and, a full size motorcycle hardly more attainable; a pedal cycle might be a possibility though and, if only…

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Norton model 19 and Roadholder forks Or re-introduced one we should say, because the 350 overhead single cylinder model 50 had been in the Bracebridge Street catalogue right up to 1939, but didn't appear again until the 1956 season. For that year, the 350 (actually 348cc from its 71 x 88mm bore x stroke), formed…

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