1959 Velocette Venom 1959 VELOCETTE VENOM BACKGROUND The Venom was Velocette’s hottest bike from its inception in 1955. In 1961...
1973 Rickman 250MX 1973 Rickman 250MX Background This 1973 Rickman 250MX is the product of years of development. Brothers Don...
1953 Triumph TR5 Trophy 1953 TRIUMPH TR5 TROPHY BACKGROUND The Triumph TR5 Trophy was produced from 1949 through 1958. It was based on the 500cc 5T Speed Twin, but modified for off-road use. The TR5 Trophy was originally intended as a trials bike, with high side-exhaust, high ground clearance and...
1968 BSA A65 1968 BSA A65 Spitfire Royal Star ABOVE: Starting with the 1968 BSA A65, the Spitfire Royal Star...
1948 Triumph Speed Twin 1948 TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN BACKGROUND In a few short years, the 5T Speed Twin went from...
1964 BSA A65 NEW MODELS The 1964 BSA A65 was, of course, the third model year of the new unit construction BSA twins, the 500cc A50, and the 650cc A65, which had replaced the very successful pre-unit A7 (500) & A10 (650) in 1962. BSA was very conservative in the...
1973 BSA B50MX 1973 BSA B50MX BACKGROUND BSA produced one of the world’s most successful 500cc singles in the Gold...
1951 Vincent Rapide Series B 1951 VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent built its reputation on it’s robust 499cc Comet single. Prior...
1957 BSA A10 Pre-Unit 650 Twin 1957 BSA A10 BACKGROUND BSA’s A10 was the 650 version in it’s twin cylinder heavyweight line. The 500cc version was called the A7. Following Triumph‘s success with its seminal 500 Speed Twin, after the war, BSA and most of the rest of the British...
1955 Vincent Black Prince 1955 VINCENT BLACK PRINCE BACKGROUND By the early 1950s, Vincent the company was struggling. Founder Phil...
1966 BSA A65 1966 BSA A65 Spitfire Special 1966 BSA A65 SPITFIRE SPECIAL This was the hot rod version of...
BSA Bantam History ABOVE: 1950 BSA Bantam D1 123cc. SPOILS OF WAR The birth of the BSA Bantam line did not take place in England after the war. Indeed it started out as a pre-war Germany design, the DKW RT125, and DKW was taken over by the Allies as part...
Thunderbird 6T, 649cc 4-speed gearbox, single Amal Monobloc carburettor, rated at 34hp ex-South Australian Police motorcycle was used for general...
A WORK IN PROGRESS In our efforts to complete our online index, and make this the world’s greatest website about...
ABOVE & BELOW: 1977 Triumph Bonneville T140V was essentially carried over from ’76, as would be the practice from now on. Budget constraints were choking the company and it’s products. This one is in the Polychromatic Blue and Cold White paint scheme. FOCUSING ON ONE MODEL As the 1977 model...
SHORT MODEL YEAR The 1974 Triumph Bonneville was built in very low numbers. It was a very odd year in...
ABOVE: The 1976 Triumph Bonneville is the first to adopt left-side shift. Note shifter coming out of primary case. SPANISH...
1969 Norton Commando Fastback ABOVE: 1969 Norton Commando Fastback MODEL DESIGNATIONS The 1969 Norton Commando came in one additional model for 1969, its second model year in production. The 1968 Norton Commando was available in one model only, and so was simply called ‘Norton Commando’, even though it had what...
1954 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW-ONE OF THE LAST The Vincent Motorcycle Co. closed its doors in 1955, so this 1954-model was...
1950 VINCENT COMET RUNNING GEAR The Vincent Comet had frame similar in layout to the V-twin Vincent Black Shadow which...
1952 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine into a 50-degree V-twin, the Vincent Black Shadow was introduced in 1949. It followed on the heals of the Vincent Rapide, which was more of a touring bike. The buying public wanted more power,...
1953 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine into a 50-degree V-twin,...
1936 VINCENT COMET FRAME & CYCLE GEAR The Vincent Comet had frame similar in layout to the V-twin Vincent Black...
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...
1950 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine into a 50-degree V-twin,...
1949 VINCENT COMET RUNNING GEAR The Vincent Comet had frame similar in layout to the V-twin Vincent Black Shadow which...
1951 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. And, like the big V-twins, the engine was a stressed member of the frame, eliminating the need for...
1960 TRIUMPH TWENTY-ONE HAS BATHTUB STYLING. The British home market had been hungry for cheap transportation after WWII, and commuter...
INTRODUCING THE 1938 TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN It’s hard to overstate the significance of the introduction of this bike. Until the...
TRIUMPH DAYTONA IS HOT The Triumph Daytona is essentially the high-performance version of the T100C Trophy 500 twin. Fitted with a new alloy cylinder head mounting two Amal Monobloc carubretors ‘Bonneville-style’, it also had higher compression and hotter cams. The increased the size of the intake valves, and found that...
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...