CROWDED MARKET The Norton Dominator was Norton’s entry into the crowded vertical twin market, & it was intended to capitalize...
1947 TRIUMPH 3T DELUXE BACKGROUND Triumph production reverted to civilian machines in 1946, following the end of World War II....
1959 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 home...
BSA A65: THE MOVE TO UNIT CONSTRUCTION The BSA A65-A50 twins, the A65 being a 650 twin & it’s smaller...
1946 TRIUMPH 3T BACKGROUND As Triumph production reverted to civilian machines immediately after the end of World War II, the...
Les Harris Bonnevilles Rise from the Ashes The story of the Les Harris Bonnevilles is one of the more fascinating in all of Classic British Motorcycles lore. Such was the reputation of the Triumph name & the enthusiasm & optimism of its most devoted followers that after the 1983 collapse...
EVOLUTION OF THE ATLAS The Norton Atlas evolved from the Norton Dominator line, which had grown since its inception in...
1961 TRIUMPH TWENTY ONE HAS BATHTUB STYLING. The British home market had been hungry for cheap transportation after WWII, and...
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 500 singles. As the 1930s...
1964 AJS MODEL 16 BACKGROUND Parent-company AMC secured some lucrative contracts from the British government to build, among other things...
VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent head engineer Phil Irving was working on some tracings of the firm’s 499cc single cylinder engine...
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...
THE TRIUMPH TWENTY ONE MISSION There are two schools of thought on the name ‘Triumph Twenty One’. It’s either honoring...
THE 1973 TRIUMPH X75 HURRICANE As an interesting aside to the Triumph Trident / BSA Rocket 3 story is the...
ABOVE: The 1960 BSA Gold Star Clubman was a high-performance roadster. The Gold Star also earned major off-road competition cred during its 25-year career. GOLDIE LORE The BSA Gold Star was one of the most successful motorcycles of all time, both in the showroom & on the track. It’s ancient...
1959 AJS MODEL 31 BACKGROUND AJS and sister-brand Matchless were late to the vertical twin party. Triumph started it all...
ROYAL ENFIELD INTERCEPTOR BACKGROUND Royal Enfield hopped up its 692cc Constellation and created a new model, the 700 Interceptor in...
MY 1979 TRIUMPH T140D BONNEVILLE SPECIAL I own a ’79 T140D myself. It’s pictured above, on display at the Quail Motorcycle Gathering in Carmel CA in 2011. The day after this show I rode it in the Quail Ride, which took us through the hills around Carmel. It happened to...
Sweet 1970 Triumph TR6 Trophy, with high pipes (on the other side). THE ORIGINS OF THE TR6 The story of...
1961 AJS MODEL 31 BACKGROUND AJS and sister-brand Matchless were late to the vertical twin party. Triumph started it all...
Hinkley Triumph Motorcycles Hinkley Triumph Motorcycles have a rich and interesting history, despite being a fairly young company. The classic Triumph brand led the performance motorcycle market from the end of World War 2 until the late 1960s, when the Japanese absolutely conquered the market. Almost the entire British motorcycle...
1936 Matchless G3C Trials. MATCHLESS G3 EARLY HISTORY In the early 1930’s Matchless was enjoying great success with its side-valve...
1946 AJS MODEL 18 BACKGROUND Immediately following the end of World War II in 1945, every British motorcycle manufacturer rushed...
BSA B50 BACKGROUND BSA built its business and its reputation on big singles. The 350cc and 500cc Gold Star dominated the off-road market from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. By this time of course, the state of the art had moved forward considerably, and the heavy Gold Star...
THE VELOCETTE LE – A BEST-SELLER? Immediately following World War 2, there was a pressing need in the UK for...
1947 BSA C10 BACKGROUND With the exception of their exciting new vertical twin, the A7, BSA’s postwar lineup was pretty...
TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN CHANGES THE WORLD! From their earliest inception through the 1930s, most classic British motorcycles were single-cylinder designs with a few V-twins thrown in for sidecar duty. But the problem with both these configurations is vibration and a lot of it. As bikes grew in displacement and power...
NORTON NAVIGATOR BACKGROUND Norton has always been known for big powerful bikes like the Manx and the Commando. But they...
TANGLED ROOTS The BSA Rocket 3 is something of an anomaly in the history of BSA Motorcycles. Designed by Triumph,...
VELOCETTE KSS – WHAT’S IN A NAME? In case you were wondering, the letters “KSS” stand for Kamshaft Super Sport or Camshaft Super Sport. The original owners of Velocette were German, and the German spelling is with a K. The KSS was the final development of the K-series, and it...
1977 Triumph Bonneville Silver Jubilee US-Market Version ABOVE & BELOW: The US-spec version of the 1977 Triumph Bonneville Silver Jubilee...
1950 AJS 7R BOY RACER BACKGROUND The 7R was a factory road racer produced by AJS from 1948 through 1963....
1959 AJS MODEL 16 BACKGROUND The Model 16 was AJS’s middleweight 350 single. They were rugged, well-designed and fast for their era and class. Since AMC owned both companies, both AJS and Matchless had nearly identical bikes. Matchless called theirs the G3 and besides styling, the only mechanical difference between...
1953 AJS Model 18S 1953 AJS Model 18C 1953 AJS MODEL 18 BACKGROUND Since AMC owned both brands, the AJS...
1964 MATCHLESS G3C BACKGROUND Parent-company AMC got a contract to build 80,000 Matchless G3s and G3/Ls for the British government...
1974 Triumph Trident T150 1974 TRIUMPH TRIDENT MOSTLY CARRIES OVER The 1974 Trident was essentially much the same as the 1973, other than paint schemes and minor details. Trouble was brewing at Triumph that saw the workers union shut down their Meriden plant, where their best-selling Bonneville and all other...
1971 Norton Commando 1971 Norton Commando ROADSTER 4 NEW MODELS The 1971 Norton Commando line grew from 2 models in...
2014 Norton Commando 961 2014 NORTON COMMANDO 961 BACKGROUND When the classic Commando went out of production in 1975, a...
1955 BSA GOLD STAR BACKGROUND By 1955, the Gold Star was well-sorted and had turned into a fine machine. All Goldies were special to begin with, each engine being hand-assembled and dyno-tested at the factory. A copy of the dyno test was included with each new Gold Star. They were...
1968 Egli-Vincent 1968 EGLI-VINCENT BACKGROUND Swiss racer/engineer Fritz Egli designed and built custom frame kits for the legendary Vincent 998cc...