Rare find

Never heard of it? Well, you can be forgiven because this is a long defunct Japanese company which took Ariel as its design basis. Surely one of the rarest bikes you’ll see in Britain. Close inspection showed the frame to have cribbed the Anstey link rear suspension, more readily seen on the Square Fours, a twin port cylinder head, the mag-dyno sports the three diamonds of Mitsubishi and the carburettor is a later concentric lookalike.

It was part of a batch of machines brought over from the USA, which also included a Belgian four cylinder FN among others. This photograph was taken around 10am on Saturday morning, by which time it had already been sold for £7000.

Also on the stand was a 500cc Cabton twin cylinder engine, on sale for a sensible offer between £1000 and £1500.

I wonder if any such machines were ever exported to the UK? Could these be the first time a Cabton has ever seen British soil?