1926 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 WAS AN EARLY BIKE Brough Superior was established by George Brough in Nottingham, England in 1924....
1926 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 WAS AN EARLY BIKE Brough Superior was established by George Brough in Nottingham, England in 1924....
1927 AJS MODEL H4 AJS built a fine line of motorcycles in the late 1920s, including side-valve (SV) and overhead valve (OHV) singles ranging in engine size and output. Horsepower was in the single digits across the board. The H4 was a 350cc SV single with advanced features for the...
1929 Velocette KTT Background The 1929 Velocette KTT was the first year of the KTT line that would run until...
1933 Velocette KTT Background The 1933 Velocette KTT was the fifth year of the KTT line that would run until...
1934 BSA Blue Star 1934 BSA BLUE STAR SETS NEW STANDARD Prior to the introduction of BSA’s Blue Star-series, motorcycles were fairly unreliable and needed constant maintenance and oiling during long trips. The Blue Star, which launched in 1932, ushered in a new age of reliability and ride-ability, being one...
THE 1935 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS100 ALPINE GRAND SPORT Brough fitted the SS100 with full touring spec and named it the...
1935 Velocette KTT Background The 1935 Velocette KTT was the first year of the KTT line that would run until...
1935 VINCENT COMET RUNNING GEAR The Vincent Comet had frame similar in layout to the V-twin Vincent Black Shadow which included Vincent’s proprietary cantilever rear suspension and Vincent’s Girdraulic forks up front. Also typical of Vincent motorcycles, the Comet had two Single Leading-Shoe (SLS) front drum brakes, one on each...
1936 VINCENT COMET FRAME & CYCLE GEAR The Vincent Comet had frame similar in layout to the V-twin Vincent Black...
1937 BSA WM20 Background The 1937 BSA WM20 was part of BSA’s massive wartime contribution to Britain’s war effort. 1937...
1938 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS100 BACKGROUND The SS100 (SS stood for “Super Sports”) was built from the very best components available at the time from a wide range of suppliers. The engines that Brough selected for his 1924 through 1936 SS100s was the twin-cam KTOP V-twin built by JAP (named for...
INTRODUCING THE 1938 TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN It’s hard to overstate the significance of the introduction of this bike. Until the...
1938 Velocette KSS 1938 VELOCETTE KSS AT THE CUTTING EDGE The Velocette KSS debuted in 1925 as an OHC (overhead...
1938 VELOCETTE KTT RACING DEVELOPMENT Velocette was not only a trail-blazer in the field of advanced engine design, they were also the first and (for a while) only major manufacturer who was willing to sell the exact same race bikes and race parts that their factory teams were using to...
1938 Velocette MAC 1938 VELOCETTE MAC BACKGROUND Velocette, while a relatively small motorcycle company, was always known for it innovative...
1939 Ariel Red Hunter 1939 ARIEL RED HUNTER BACKGROUND The 1930s were indeed the Golden Age for the British motorcycle...
1939 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS100 BACKGROUND The SS100 (SS stood for “Super Sports”) was built from the very best components available at the time from a wide range of suppliers. The engines that Brough selected for his 1924 through 1936 SS100s was the twin-cam KTOP V-twin built by JAP (named for...
1939 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 The “SS” in the name stands for “Super Sports”, and the SS80 was George Brough’s earliest...
1939 BSA Gold Star THE 1939 BSA GOLD STAR IS FAST! The BSA Gold Star was introduced in 1938 in...
1939 BSA Silver Star 1939 BSA SILVER STAR BACKGROUND The brilliant engineer Val Page designed BSA’s new 500 single in 1937, while at the same time bringing some rationale to BSA’s complex product lineup. It was now made up of 250 and 350 singles in what was called the “B-class”,...
1939 Vincent Rapide Series A 1939 VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent head engineer Phil Irving was working on some tracings of...
1941 BSA M20 HELPS SAVE DEMOCRACY BSA was already one of the world’s largest producers of motorcycles, when World War...
1941 HARLEY-DAVIDSON WLA – WHAT’S IN A NAME? The nomenclature “WLA” stands for something, as you probably suspected. The “W” signifies the ‘family’ of motorcycles within the Harley family tree. The W-series was their 45 cubic-inch flathead (side valve) single (only one seat) that was their entry-level V-twin in the...
1941 Matchless G3 1941 MATCHLESS G3 BACKGROUND Just prior to World War 2, Matchless was on a roll. Their middleweight...
1942 BSA M20 HELPS WIN WORLD WAR 2 BSA, already a manufacturing powerhouse, built 126,000 M20s that served during the...
1942 HARLEY-DAVIDSON WLA – WHAT’S IN A NAME? The nomenclature “WLA” stands for something, as you probably suspected. The “W” signifies the ‘family’ of motorcycles within the Harley family tree. The W-series was their 45 cubic-inch flathead (side valve) single (only one seat) that was their entry-level V-twin in the...
1943 BSA M20 Basics The 1943 BSA M20 was part of BSA’s massive wartime contribution to Britain’s war effort. Designed...
The 1945 BSA M20 was the last year of production during World War 2 and and just a part of...
1946 AJS MODEL 18 BACKGROUND Immediately following the end of World War II in 1945, every British motorcycle manufacturer rushed to convert from war production back to making civilian products. Millions of British troops were coming home, and they would all need transportation. But economic times were tough in England...
1946 BSA M20 History The 1946 BSA M20 was the first year of production following World War 2 and BSA’s...
1946 TRIUMPH 3T BACKGROUND As Triumph production reverted to civilian machines immediately after the end of World War II, the...
1946 Velocette KSS 1946 VELOCETTE KSS BACKGROUND The Velocette KSS debuted in 1925 as an OHC (overhead cam) 350cc air-cooled single. Being OHC placed it at the cutting edge of engine technology at a time when most machines still used side-valve designs or pushrods. The name KSS breaks down to...
1947 Ariel Red Hunter 1947 ARIEL RED HUNTER BACKGROUND The 1930s were indeed the Golden Age for the British motorcycle...
1947 BSA C10 BACKGROUND With the exception of their exciting new vertical twin, the A7, BSA’s postwar lineup was pretty...
THE NEW 1949 MATCHLESS G80 1947 was the first year for Matchless G80 civilian production following World War 2. The company’s top-line 500 single, retained the rigid frame of the prewar bikes, but borrowed the Teledraulic telescopic front forks from the wartime G3/L. They were shared across many other makes...
1947 TRIUMPH 3T DELUXE BACKGROUND Triumph production reverted to civilian machines in 1946, following the end of World War II....
1947 Velocette KSS 1947 VELOCETTE KSS BACKGROUND The Velocette KSS debuted in 1925 as an OHC (overhead cam) 350cc air-cooled...
1948 Ariel Red Hunter 1948 ARIEL RED HUNTER BACKGROUND The 1930s were indeed the Golden Age for the British motorcycle industry. At the time, nearly all of them relied heavily on one basic engine architecture: the air-cooled, pushrod OHV single, and most marques had built their lineup of 350 and...
1948 Norton Manx 1948 NORTON MANX BACKGROUND The Norton Manx was developed in 1937, in both SOHC and DOHC form,...