Old Bike Mart

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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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Steve Cooper pulls no punches as he looks back on the 1965 UK debut of Honda’s first technically brilliant ‘big twin’, the CB450, and the enlarged 500T that followed.

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