Features

Mick Payne looks back at the long history of the Watsonian Squire Palma range of sidecars, which were innovative at the time of their introduction and remain available to this day. I mentioned last time that our editor, Pete, had offered his BMW R100RT and Watsonian Palma to Kate and I on long-term test. The…

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The uncanny flexibility of the Ariel Square Fours, from the 497cc and 597cc ‘cammies’ to the final pushrod-operated 997cc Mk. 2, always amazed those fortunate enough to road test these four-pot classics, as these excerpts from our archive bound volumes show. All images: Mortons Archive www.mortonsarchive.com Last month, starting with the first published road test…

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Steve Cooper strays from the Japanese path once more as he examines the reasons why Ducati’s controversial ultra-short-stroke parallel twins were never going to succeed amid motorcyclists’ ever-changing expectations of the 1970s. Think of Ducati and you’ll be conjuring up images of rorty V-twins and lusty singles. Both will bellow in their own inimitable way,…

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Old Bike Mart meets Ian Savage, manager of the VOC Spares Company Limited in Kettering, to learn how the imaginative joint venture sources and markets the spare parts, club regalia and even complete second-hand Vincent motorcycles. Although the VOC Spares Co Ltd was set up by the Vincent Owners’ Club in 1975 to ensure a…

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Mick Payne visits a Yorkshire bootmaker with a proud tradition, after the very comfortable and practical boots they made for him 20 years ago were swiped from under his nose. During our recent Team Katy charity trip, after I’d left my boots outside the tent to air a bit, some light-fingered Herbert decided he’d like…

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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…

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Proving that a bike doesn’t have to be big to give lots of pleasure, Ian McGregor introduces readers to the thriving National Autocycle and Cyclemotor Club. The National Autocycle and Cyclemotor Club is the oldest established existing national club dealing solely with autocycles, cyclemotors, mopeds and other low-powered machines. Some 30 regional sections within the…

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Mick Payne returns to Watsonian Squire as he continues to question professional fitters about the important topic of sidecar alignment. I think it was Keith Wash, of Unit Sidecars, who summed up alignment by telling me: “If you feel like you are sitting on one buttock more than the other, then the lean out is…

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Steve Cooper fondly remembers Suzuki’s largest air-cooled two-stroke triple – the excellent but often overlooked GT550. In recent discussion with one of this column’s readers, I was asked why on earth we hadn’t done a feature on probably the most overlooked Japanese classic of the 1970s – and the guy had a point, for how…

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