by Tim
Britton
There are many ways to build
a café racer and
perhaps using a Matchless
twin isn’t the obvious
route. However, no matter
what the starting point,
to make it right takes dedication,
Tim Britton meets up with
such dedication.
I’ve been trying to
arrange a ride on this stunning
bike since I bumped into
the owner, Paul Golledge,
at the Jampot Rally near
Preston in the summer of
2002. Paul was busily picking
bits of earth out of various
nooks and crannies after
sliding off as he came onto
the campsite at Myerscough
Agricultural College. Indicating
the gate he said, “The
surface, just as you come
in there, is very slippery.”
Luckily the damage was only
superficial and didn’t
prevent Paul from taking
part in the rally. Anyway,
for various reasons it’s
taken until the summer of
2003 to actually get a chance
to sling my leg over this
highly individual machine.
Possibly the first question
has to be why would anyone
use an AMC twin as a base
to make a café racer
from when the traditional
route is to bung a Triumph
engine into a Norton Featherbed
frame? Well, because they
can really. Just because
the Triton is the benchmark
for café racers doesn’t
mean it’s the be all
and end all and, as Paul
Golledge proves with his
1959 G12L, any make or model
is fair game and with a
little dedication the result
can be incredible. The thing
is though, Paul hasn’t
got just a little dedication
–he’s got the
stuff in bucketfuls, or
wagon loads perhaps.
Right from day one he’s
had a vision of his ideal
machine in mind and set
about creating it. “I
purposely looked for a Matchless
twin because I really like
the style of them,”
says the 38-year-old production
team leader at IBL vehicles.
“I wanted a bike that
I could do stuff to, and
the Matchless was ideal,”
he says. Paul goes on to
tell me that he bought the
bike in 1994, when it was
a completely standard 1959
G12L that was actually running,
though only just. Though
the Matchless is his first
British bike – he
started riding at the age
of 13 on a Puch Maxi field
bike – he’s
far from ignorant of the
folklore surrounding them.
The problem with running
a British bike is sorting
through the accurate folklore
and the third hand horror
stories. At one time this
would be the job of the
service department and the
local dealer. Sadly the
factories have long gone
and though in some areas
there still exist long-standing
dealers, few have any personnel
who remember the old days.
So, the only real recourse
to information is the owners
club and AMC owners have
a really superb one. Naturally
Paul is a member and is
full of praise for the technical
help he gets from the club.
[End
of online sample, you can
read the rest of this article
in the September 2003 issue
of Classic Bike Guide]
Read the next online article
from the September 2003
issue Click
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