1952 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine into a 50-degree V-twin,...
1953 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine into a 50-degree V-twin,...
1950 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,...
TRIUMPH DAYTONA IS HOT The Triumph Daytona is essentially the high-performance version of the T100C Trophy 500 twin. Fitted with...
BSA A65: THE MOVE TO UNIT CONSTRUCTION The BSA A65-A50 twins, the A65 being a 650 twin & it’s smaller...
VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent head engineer Phil Irving was working on some tracings of the firm’s 499cc single cylinder engine in 1936. As things got moved around, two of the tracings lined up roughly in the shape of a V-twin. With a little cajoling, he quickly lined it up enough...
TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN CHANGES THE WORLD! From their earliest inception through the 1930s, most classic British motorcycles were single-cylinder designs...
1968 Egli-Vincent 1968 EGLI-VINCENT BACKGROUND Swiss racer/engineer Fritz Egli designed and built custom frame kits for the legendary Vincent 998cc...
1970 Egli-Vincent 1970 EGLI-VINCENT BACKGROUND Swiss racer/engineer Fritz Egli designed and built custom frame kits for the legendary Vincent 998cc V-twin engine. He built around 100 frames from 1967 to 1972, with the intent of modernizing the iconic Vincent Black Shadow, which fell out of production in 1955. Each frame...
2009 Triumph Bonneville 50th Anniversary 2009 TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE 50th ANNIVERSARY The Triumph Bonneville has been with us since 1959. That...
2009 Triumph Bonneville 50th Anniversary 2009 TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE 50th ANNIVERSARY The Triumph Bonneville has been with us since 1959....
1959 BSA A10 Pre-Unit 650 Twin 1959 BSA A10 Rocket 1959 BSA A10 ROCKET By 1959, both of BSA‘s big non-unit twins, the 500cc A7 and the 650 cc A10 had been in production for a decade or more and had been the recipients of constant and continuous improvement. This...
A WORK IN PROGRESS In our efforts to complete our online index, and make this the world’s greatest website about...
1954 Vincent Rapide Series C 1954 VINCENT RAPIDE-NEARING THE END Vincent built its reputation on it’s robust 499cc Comet single....
1955 Vincent Rapide Series D 1955 VINCENT RAPIDE-LAST OF THE LINE Vincent built its reputation on it’s robust 499cc Comet single. Prior to the war, they figured out that if they doubled it, they could create a 998cc V-twin and the series A Vincent Rapide was born. Few were...
1941 HARLEY-DAVIDSON WLA – WHAT’S IN A NAME? The nomenclature “WLA” stands for something, as you probably suspected. The “W”...
1951 Vincent Black Shadow 1951 VINCENT BLACK SHADOW BACKGROUND Brilliantly designed by doubling up the 499cc Vincent Comet single-cylinder engine...
1956 Triumph Speed Twin 1956 TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN RELEGATED TO THE BACK SEAT The 1938 Triumph Speed Twin was the first vertical twin to hit the market, just prior to WWII, and it changed everything. Almost the entire British motorcycle industry rushed to copy their success as soon as the...
1963 BSA A10 Pre-Unit 650 Twin 1963 BSA A10 SUPER ROCKET 1963 BSA A10 SUPER ROCKET The Super Rocket was...
1942 HARLEY-DAVIDSON WLA – WHAT’S IN A NAME? The nomenclature “WLA” stands for something, as you probably suspected. The “W”...
1959 Ariel Huntmaster 1959 AREIL HUNTMASTER BACKGROUND Ariel was owned by the Sangster family, failed a few times, then ended up in the hands of young Jack Sangster. Ariel was his entry into the British motorcycle industry, something that would have profound effects on it. He did so well selling...
1970 Norton Mercury 1970 NORTON MERCURY BACKGROUND The Norton Mercury-series ran from 1968 to 1970 and represents the last model...
1971 Triumph T100R Daytona 1971 TRIUMPH T100R DAYTONA BACKGROUND The Daytona became Triumph’s top-of-the-line 500 twin. The “Daytona” name came...
1959 Triumph Thunderbird ABOVE: This 1959 Triumph Thunderbird has more than a healthy amount of patina. In fact, if it wasn’t all in one piece, it might be a basket case. Sorry I couldn’t do better on a photo, but it was the only one I could find that I...
1958 Triumph Twenty-One 1958 TRIUMPH TWENTY-ONE HAS BATHTUB STYLING. The British home market had been hungry for cheap transportation after...
1951 BSA A10 Pre-Unit 650 Twin 1951 BSA A10 Golden Flash 1951 BSA A10 GOLDEN FLASH From its launch in...
1967 Royal Enfield Interceptor 1967 ROYAL ENFIELD INTERCEPTOR BACKGROUND Royal Enfield hopped up its 692cc Constellation and created a new model, the 700 Interceptor in 1960, for sale in the US and Canada markets only (on England). They’d just lost their contract to rebadge Constellations with Indian Motorcycle regalia then...
1973 Triumph Daytona 500 1973 TRIUMPH DAYTONA – WHAT’S IN A NAME? Triumph derived the name of this bike from...
1951 Triumph Thunderbird 1951 Triumph Thunderbird Background The 1951 Triumph Thunderbird carried the model designation “6T”. All 6T’s were 650’s...
1969 Norton Dominator 650SS 1969 NORTON DOMINATOR 650SS BACKGROUND The story starts not with a Norton, but with the 1938 Triumph 500 Speed Twin, the world’s first “modern” vertical twin. The rest of the British motorcycle industry went nuts and rushed to field their own 500 twins. But WWII got...
1958 Triumph Thunderbird ABOVE: The 1958 Triumph Thunderbird 6T looked very similar to this 1958 Triumph T110 Tiger, with headlight...
1939 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS100 BACKGROUND The SS100 (SS stood for “Super Sports”) was built from the very best components available...
THE 1935 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS100 ALPINE GRAND SPORT Brough fitted the SS100 with full touring spec and named it the “Alpine Grand Sport” starting in 1925. That same year, Brough Superior Motorcycles introduced the Pendine Racing Model (named after the Pendine Sands where Malcolm Camplbel set several speed records on...
1954 Triumph Thunderbird ABOVE: An early-1954 Triumph Thunderbird with rigid frame. BELOW: Partway through the 1954 model-year Triumph converted over...
1926 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 WAS AN EARLY BIKE Brough Superior was established by George Brough in Nottingham, England in 1924....
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...
1939 BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 The “SS” in the name stands for “Super Sports”, and the SS80 was George Brough’s earliest...
ABOVE: This 1952 BSA A7 featured plunger rear suspension, the transition between earlier rigid frames & the swing arm frames...
1949 Vincent Rapide 1949 VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent built its reputation on it’s robust 499cc Comet single. Prior to the war, they figured out that if they doubled it, they could create a 998cc V-twin and the series A Vincent Rapide was born. Few were built prior to World War...
1948 Vincent Rapide Series B 1948 VINCENT RAPIDE BACKGROUND Vincent built its reputation on it’s robust 499cc Comet single. Prior...