Love at first sight; Steven Myatt declares his undying love of Jodie Kidd and swoopy exhaust pipes - again. But it's a Great British Special that's really won his heart

If I were to stand you behind this bike and ask you to identify it, you might struggle a tad. Look, there’s a fairly serious tyre, but above that there’s just a white-on-black number plate and the dome of a racing seat. There’s a big-bore pipe on the offside, yes, but what else can you see? Well, nothing. You can’t see the barrels, the front pipes or the cases. This machine is as slim as Jodie Kidd after a month on a fashionable dietary plan.
Ok, you need a clue. We start the bike and you’re treated to the most wonderfully deep, pulsating throbbing burble – which crescendoes to a roar when the throttle’s blipped. So, it’s a big single, you say – and revving like that it isn’t going to be an ES2.
You need more clues, so I’ll let you move a few inches to the left. A big alloy primary cover! Now you’re confused. Move to the right and you might just get it. What we have here is a variation on the Triton/Tribsa-and-so-on formula: A mighty, legendary Gold Star engine sitting in a Featherbed frame, looking like God’s own special. For my money, one of the best-looking British specials I’ve ever seen.
Only last month I was enthusing about that great Triton-building establishment, Unity Equipe. This is both a wonderful example of their special-creating abilities, and at the same time atypical of their work. It’s got all the best components, all the very best elements – but instead of a Triumph parallel twin there’s a mighty Beeza single sitting very neatly in the Wideline Featherbed. As a variation on the theme it’s not unknown, of course, but it is a rarity – was in the Sixties and still is today.

This was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an inexpensive bike to wrest from Unity’s stock list. As bought by Tony Coulter in the spring of 2003 it cost … well, it’s not for me to tell you how much it cost, but put it this way; I’m currently wondering if the Myatt domestic finances can run to the purchase of a brand new Jaguar estate car (what do you think? I say yes, my wife says no – and it was ever thus). Well, to within a few quid, Tony paid as much for the Norbstar as I would have to do for Jaguar. But the difference is that the car would start depreciating the moment the ink dried on my cheque, whereas the Norbstar will be worth the same – or more, possible a hell of a lot more – in one, 10 or 1000 years time.

So, as I was delighting in the drive down through Cheshire and Shropshire on a glorious autumn morning, I was wondering what sort of guy I was going to meet. A millionaire dilettante who’s bought it as an investment? An ageing rock star who reckons it goes with the image, and who keeps it in the great hall, parked next to the Wurlitzer and under the Ronnie Wood portrait of Keith Richard?
Take it from me, so gorgeous a bike couldn’t be in better hands. Tony Coulter is one of us – a middle aged and obviously unhinged bike freak. He owns a couple of dozen bikes – some roadworthy, some in a state of mild decay, others in rather more advanced deterioration. There’s a couple of modest modern bikes around too, and a Trident-engined Triton. The Norbstar shines out like a beacon in the collection though, and I don’t think he’ll mind me telling you how it came to be his.

A while ago, tootling along with the wind in his hair and the bugs in his teeth, a gormless lady driving her sensible car pulled out right in front of him; “I don’t know what she thought she was doing. There was a car coming the other way and if she hadn’t hit me she’d have hit him. There was nowhere for me to go; I hit her head on and went straight over the top of the car.” Injury, anger and pain followed – and eventually a well-deserved compensation payment.
Maybe, with cheque in hand, Tony thought that it would be a good idea to invest the sum in future trading on the international gold market or some such, but I guess that would have been the most fleeting of thoughts. Instead, yes you’re right, he phoned Unity Equipe and invested it in the bike of his dreams. What a hero.

Tony’s bike-owning history is a familiar story, except for the fact that he did own a Gold Star, and as his everyday transport, fairly early on in his two-wheeled career. His very first bike, way back in 1965, was a 250cc Panther Model 65. It was basically a 1955 model, but… “In fact it came from several scrap yards, in bits. I put it together, rode it for a bit, passed my test on it and then passed it on to my younger brother. I got an A7 Shooting Star after that – I had a lot of fun on that – they’re a vastly under-rated bike. Then I got the Gold Star. I paid 80 quid for it. That was ’67. I sold it in the mid ’70s for £150 and thought I’d done really well…”

Bike racing has always been a passion for the guy, but in recent years he’s started going on far-flung two-wheeled expeditions too, “I first went to Goa with Blazing Trails, and enjoyed that so much I went on their Himalayan trip. That was awesome. It’s totally unspoilt there, though I doubt it will remain that way for long. Just before Christmas last year I took my son on the back and we went up through Thailand, towards Burma. That was with Siam Roadrunners, two weeks, wonderful. There’s a Goa trip running this Christmas; that’d be nice. I’d like to get my daughter to come on that one – she rides an SV650 Suzuki and last year she and I went up the length of Norway; she took the Suzi and I took my Guzzi. We got to the Arctic Circle.”

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