1961 MATCHLESS G80 TYPHOON BACKGROUND Parent-company AMC knew how to build big singles. Despite now having a nice lineup of...
NEW MODEL DESIGNATIONS Starting with the 1961 Triumph Bonneville, the T120 model designation was followed by either an “R” for...
1961 Triumph Cub 1961 TRIUMPH CUB BACKGROUND The 200cc T20 Tiger Cub was produced from 1956 through 1968 and sold quite well for Triumph. The original Cub was introduced in 1953 at the Earls Court Motorcycle Show in London England as a 150cc commuter, at a time when there was...
1961 Triumph Cub 1961 TRIUMPH CUB BACKGROUND The 200cc T20 Tiger Cub was produced from 1956 through 1968 and sold...
1961 TRIUMPH TR6 BY THE NUMBERS Gone was the previous “A” & “B” designations introduced in 1960. The new nomenclature...
1961 TRIUMPH TWENTY ONE HAS BATHTUB STYLING. The British home market had been hungry for cheap transportation after WWII, and commuter motorcycles helped fill that role. But England being…well, England, was wet and rainy and to prevent rust an owner needed to wipe his bike down each night after getting...
1962 BSA Gold Star 1962 BSA GOLD STAR CLUBMAN While the BSA Gold Star was famous for its off-road and...
1962 Norton Manx 1962 NORTON MANX BACKGROUND The Norton Manx was developed in 1937, in both SOHC and DOHC form,...
1962 TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE -MODEL DESIGNATIONS The 1962 Triumph Bonneville again came in two basic model designations: T120R was the Road version, and T120C was the Street Scrambler/Off-Road version (what later might have been called an Enduro). Most of the bike was strictly carry-over from 1961. Of course, this was the...
1962 Velocette Venom 1962 Velocette Venom CLUBMAN 1962 VELOCETTE VENOM CLUBMAN The Venom was already a fairly low-volume bike, but...
1963 BSA A10 Pre-Unit 650 Twin 1963 BSA A10 SUPER ROCKET 1963 BSA A10 SUPER ROCKET The Super Rocket was...
Check out these BSA BOOKS BSA Motorcycles: The Final Evolution The BSA Gold Star: Motorcycle History Illustrated Bsa Buyer’s Guide (Motorbooks International Illustrated Buyer’s Guide) Bsa Twin Restoration BSA Unit Singles: The Complete Story including the Triumph Derivatives Bsa Motor Cycles: Since 1950 (British Motor cycles since 1950) BSA Unit...
A WHOLE NEW MOTORCYCLE! The 1963 Triumph Bonneville was essentially a brand-new bike. Not quite designed from a clean slate,...
1963 Triumph Thunderbird 1963 TRIUMPH THUNDERBIRD GOES UNIT CONSTRUCTION Along with the rest of the Triumph 650 line, the 1963...
1955 BSA A7 Pre-Unit 500 Twin 1955 BSA A7 BACKGROUND The 500cc A7 was BSA’s first vertical twin and marked its entry into that very lucrative market, started by the Triumph Speed Twin just prior to the war. At war’s end, virtually every British motorcycle manufacturer fielded their own vertical...
1964 AJS MODEL 16 BACKGROUND Parent-company AMC secured some lucrative contracts from the British government to build, among other things...
1964 BSA A65 NEW MODELS The 1964 BSA A65 was, of course, the third model year of the new unit...
1964 MATCHLESS G3C BACKGROUND Parent-company AMC got a contract to build 80,000 Matchless G3s and G3/Ls for the British government during World War II. When the war ended, these became the foundation of AMC’s middleweight line, including both the 350cc Matchless G3 and the AJS Model 16. As always, both...
1964 Norton Atlas 1964 NORTON ATLAS BACKSTORY The story starts not with a Norton at all, but with the 1938...
SECOND YEAR CARRYOVER The 1964 Triumph Bonneville T120 650 was pretty much a carry-over from 1963 and at the same...
1964 TRIUMPH TR6 BY THE NUMBERS While model years 1962 & 1963 saw only one model designation for all Triumph TR6s, the Triumph TR6S/S, 1964 saw a plethora of TR6 engine prefixes: TR6SS, TR6R, TR6C, TR6SC & TR6SR, and goes to show how the TR6 & Bonneville families had virtually...
1964 Velocette Venom 1964 VELOCETTE VENOM BACKGROUND By the time Venom production began in 1965, Velocette was almost at the...
SLOW STEADY REFINEMENT The 1965 Triumph Bonneville T120 650 was again more or less a carry-over from 1964, which itself...
The 1965 Triumph TR6 is a beautiful, graceful machine. This, however is a 1964 TR6SS, very similar to the ’65, as no photo was available of a ’65. HELP!! Got a ’65 TR6? Send us pictures of your bike! 1965 TRIUMPH TR6 BY THE NUMBERS There were four basic models...
1966 BSA A65 1966 BSA A65 Spitfire Special 1966 BSA A65 SPITFIRE SPECIAL This was the hot rod version of...
1966 MATCHLESS G80- LAST OF THE LINE The G80 was Matchless‘s top-of-the-line 500 single. Launched in 1949, just as civilian...
MORE POWER, SCOTTY! By the release of the new 1966 Triumph Bonneville T120 650, Meriden had had a few years to sort out the teething problems of the new frame and unit-construction engine, introduced in 1963. Most of the changes up to this point had been incremental, but now the...
1966 Triumph Mountain Cub 1966 TRIUMPH MOUNTAIN CUB BACKGROUND The 200cc T20 Tiger Cub was produced from 1956 through 1968...
1966 Velocette Thruxton 1966 VELOCETTE THRUXTON Velocette has a proven design in their 500cc Velocette Venom. Big singles had sort...
1967 MATCHLESS G80 BACKGROUND Matchless de-stroked their big 500 single down to an 86mm stroke, creating what they called the “short stroke” engine. The G80 was what they called back then a “scrambler”, which later might have been defined as an ‘enduro’, and today would probably be called a ‘Dual...
1967 Royal Enfield Interceptor 1967 ROYAL ENFIELD INTERCEPTOR BACKGROUND Royal Enfield hopped up its 692cc Constellation and created a new...
MODEL LINE-UP The 1967 Triumph Bonneville T120 650 continued to be developed and refined in incremental steps, sometimes one forward...
1968 BSA A65 1968 BSA A65 Spitfire Royal Star ABOVE: Starting with the 1968 BSA A65, the Spitfire Royal Star joined the lineup, as BSA’s premium offering, at least until the arrival of the Rocket 3 a year later. 1968 BSA A65 Firebird Scrambler BSA’S DESERT SLED The A65 Firebird...
1968 Egli-Vincent 1968 EGLI-VINCENT BACKGROUND Swiss racer/engineer Fritz Egli designed and built custom frame kits for the legendary Vincent 998cc...
1968 MATCHLESS G80 BACKGROUND Matchless de-stroked their big 500 single down to an 86mm stroke, creating what they called the...
This 1968 Rickman-BSA 441 represents years of development. After years of racing motocross in the 1950s in England and Europe, brothers Don and Derek Rickman decided to design their own frame. At the time, most dirt bikes were simply stripped-down street bikes, which were too heavy and not ideal for...
1973 TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE MODEL DESIGNATIONS 1973 was a big year for the new Oil-in-Frame Triumph Bonneville. Starting the model year...
1968 TRIUMPH TR6 NOMENCLATURE For years, every Triumph TR6 was referred to as a Triumph Trophy, but that was soon...
1968 Velocette Thruxton 1968 VELOCETTE THRUXTON BACKGROUND Velocette had a proven design in their 500cc Velocette Venom. Big singles had sort passed from grace in the 1960s with the advent of all the twins pouring out of Britain, and now the high-revving, and totally-reliable twins coming out of Japan. Velocette...
1969 Norton Commando Fastback ABOVE: 1969 Norton Commando Fastback MODEL DESIGNATIONS The 1969 Norton Commando came in one additional model...