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A 650 twin was eventually added to Ariel’s line-up, using most of a BSA engine to power it. They make for interesting rebuilds WORDS BY ROB DAVIES   PHOTOS BY ROB DAVIES AND DOUG WALKER A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited along to one of the oldest established motorcycle clubs…

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Words and photos by Phillip Tooth We have a lot to thank the Yanks for. There’s the Big Mac, the King Size bed, the XXL T-shirt… and the Norton Dominator 99. America is where size matters and big is better. Norton jumped on the vertical twin cavalcade in 1948 with the 500cc Model 7 Dominator,…

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Updating an icon can be a risky business. It’s all too easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater, or produce a pastiche instead of an improvement. But if you want the best, you may have to build it yourself… WORDS BY Rowena Hoseason PHOTOS BY Chris Dickinson When bsa first built this bike,…

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Effortless efficiency (and it’s even affordable) PHOTOS BY Joe Dick IN THE PAST 40 years, Jack has always owned at least one Gold Wing. He started out with a GL1000 in 1977 and, as you might imagine, he’s owned quite a few since then alongside many other types of motorcycle. But there’s something about the…

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In 1973, BMW attempted to shake off the firm’s boring image by launching the R90S.

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The replica racer that gives triple thrills without tantrums WORDS & PHOTOS BY Marion Thirsk IN 1971 DAVID BOWIE wrote Moonage Daydream and sang ‘Put your ray gun to my head’. It’s almost certain that he wasn’t influenced by the distinctive silencers on Triumph’s legendary three-cylinder racer, but that must have been how the competition…

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Power and speed with rock steady handling WORDS & PHOTOS BY Marion Thirsk LAVERDA HAD ITS ORIGINS in rugged tractors and combine harvesters, so it’s little wonder that their motorcycles are equally well engineered. Solid, reliable, durable and dependable, with top quality components, Laverda’s twins and triples exhibit the same design strengths as their agricultural…

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Start with a fairly clean sheet of paper and build a Manx Norton from scratch. The result might look a little like this. WORDS BY Frank Melling PHOTOS BY Carol Melling, Mortons archive Sitting in the pits, watching the classic racers fly by, there’s plenty of opportunity to talk about what might have been and…

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For adventure, that is. The first Triumph to carry the name Adventurer was a light 500 twin, good for pretty much anything adventurous… PHOTOS BY CHRIS DICKINSON, CHRIS SPAETT WORDS BY FRANK WESTWORTH A minor puzzle in the classic motorcycling world – at least for yrstrly – has been the popularity of Triumph’s twin engines…

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A little tidying goes a long way towards restoring a classic Triumph to its rightful glory WORDS & PHOTOS BY ROB DAVIES The Thunderbird title has been used on several Triumph motorcycles since 1949. The first of its kind was a basic 4-stroke twin with a rigid rear end, turning out a claimed 34bhp. Certainly,…

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