History of the modern superbike

New book and lacquer treatment in a can

The book charts the last of the throws of the dice for BSA, Triumph and Norton while looking at the inescapable future as produced by Japan. Running from Kawasaki’s H1 head banger through to the jaw dropping Honda CBX1000 this rather excellent book also looks at the European and American competition and puts the whole lot into context.

Sheehan examines why the bikes of the time were made in the way they were, the decisions made by the various factories along with the risks and gambles many of them took. Seeing the 1970s from the inside gives the book a nice unusual spin and the reader can also get a flavour of how both the period culture and the machines of time influenced each other.

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Superbikes and the 70s is available from Panther Publishing Ltd (01494 534778) or www.panther-publishing.co.uk

• Lacquer aerosol
If you’ve ever owned a Japanese motorcycle you’ll know there’s acres of exposed alloy all over them and more importantly just how much of it was lacquered or coated from new.

It’s become the fashion to take off the old peeling and corrupted lacquer with paint stripper and then refinish. This is fine but if you’re not a polishing junkie it can be a real fag keeping everything free from corrosion.

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Perhaps it’s just us at OBM but we’ve not come across a viable replacement for the deep gloss coatings favoured by the factories that actually works… until now.

Bike Colours supplies a one part (1K) aerosol self etching lacquer that’s easy to apply and is as good if not better than the original finish. The product comes with application notes and is readily available from the supplier.

The clear self etching lacquer is just one of a range of paints  targeted at the Japanese scene and we’ve used its top coats on a long term project machine with excellent results.

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Call Mal on 01524 33700 or check out the entire range at www.bikecolours.co.uk


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