Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2016 i Motorcycle Classics

In the late Seventies, touring was hot. For 1979, both BMW and Harley-Davidson introduced motorcycles with frame-mounted fairings and hard luggage, the R100RT and Tour Glide, respectively. Honda embraced the concept wholeheartedly for their 1981 model range, reassigning the sporting 6-cylinder CBX to bagger duty to join the GL1100 Gold Wing Interstate as the brand’s premium touring duo. Those were both big bikes, so for buyers wanting something a little more modest Honda slotted the versatile CX500 V-twin drivetrain in a new frame to create the GL500 Silver Wing. Fitted with the same fairing as the GL1100, hard bags and dual front disc brakes (single disc on the base Wing) it became the GL500 Silver Wing Interstate. No doubt the CX500 powerplant was repurposed with the intention of extending the…

Motorcycle Classics at the 12th Annual Barber Vintage Festival Every Barber Festival is special, but this year’s 12th Annual Barber Vintage Festival, Oct. 7-9, is sure to blow the top off the Motorcycle Classics tent with a special appearance from Ducati specialists Vee Two Australia, who will join us to show off a just-completed Ducati special powered by the incredible Vee Two Ritorno Twin. A modern re-creation of what many consider to be the ultimate bevel-drive Ducati desmo V-twin engine, the NCR race engine used by Mike Hailwood to win the 1978 Isle of Man TT, the Vee Two Ritorno is being manufactured for sale using the original Ducati drawings, supplied with the approval of the Ducati factory. In celebration of the Ritorno’s U.S. unveiling, we’ve chosen Ducati as the…

In 1955 the American auto industry was enjoying unprecedented performance and prosperity. A game of corporate one-upmanship had begun in 1949 with Charles Kettering’s Oldsmobile Rocket V-8, followed by Chrysler’s 180hp FirePower V-8 in 1951. When Ford launched its overhead-valve V-8 in 1954 — followed by Chevrolet with its new-for-1955 small-block V-8 as a low-cost option for its entire lineup — it was clear the Big Three automakers were officially waging a full-scale horsepower war. It was a magical time, and 19-year-old Detroit, Michigan, resident Michael FitzSimons was soaking up every minute of it. He was a car-crazy kid living in the golden age of American performance, and he wasn’t alone in his joy. Young drivers all over the country were borrowing their parents’ abundantly powerful coupes and sedans and…

Art Deco was an innovative and distinctive style of design that spanned the boom times of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of the Depression-ridden 1930s. It was the style of the flapper girl and the office typist, of the factory worker and daredevil car driver. Art Deco was avant-garde. It celebrated the newly mechanized modern world, yet embraced everthing from everyday manufactured products to exclusive works of art. It was everywhere, from cinemas to skyscrapers, from luxury ocean liners to exotic automobiles — and, yes, to some motorcycles, too. What is arguably the most resolutely Art Deco motorcycle ever built emerged in the United States in 1935 as the one-off creation of a Michigan-based metalsmith employed at the Oldsmobile car factory. The bike was based on his 1,300cc 4-cylinder…

By the early 1900s, Czechoslovakia’s reputation for excellent engineering was already well established, even though the country’s motorcycles were not well known beyond its borders. That’s a shame, because by the 1920s and 1930s more than 60 Czech manufacturers, including CZ, ESO and Böhmerland, were building interesting machines. JAWA, probably the most familiar of the Czech marques, built the stylish 250cc Perak featured here. From bombs to bikes For better or worse, a lot of people have made a lot of money building and selling weapons. Between wars, when business is slow, arms manufacturers have traditionally looked for ways to keep the lights on. JAWA motorcycles, like those from BSA, Royal Enfield, Husqvarna and others, were produced in factories that originally built armaments. Frantisek Janecek was born in 1878 in…

What do you do with an aging race bike that’s obsolete, yet hasn’t quite reached collectable status? Well, you could convert it to a street bike. That’s what Ron Martin did back in 1977 with a Harley-Davidson XRTT-750 rolling chassis that had been mothballed from road race duty shortly after Yamaha unveiled its TZ700 in 1974. The moment that the banshee wail of that legendary 2-stroke inline 4-cylinder engine echoed off Daytona Speedway’s banking, the writing was on the wall for the antiquated XRTT-750 V-twin, or any other 4-stroke race bike, for that matter. Martin, of Seminole, Florida, had acquired his relic racer when it was still intact, less engine. The road race bike originally cradled Harley-Davidson’s XR-750 engine — in either the early iron-cylinder incarnation or with the alloy…

Finding a master cylinder Q: I own a 1983 Kawasaki GPz 750, and I am in need of a rear brake master cylinder. I’ve already tried to find a rebuild kit; however, there is no part number listing for one from Kawasaki or the aftermarket. I’ve called quite a few salvage yards and have not had any success. Each time I ask what will work instead from either Kawasaki or the aftermarket, no one seems to know. So I pose the question to you: What from Kawasaki will work or what from the aftermarket will work? I’ve spent a number of years re-doing this bike and this is the last hurdle. I hope you guys can offer a suggestion or point me in a direction. Dennis Ventura/via email A: The…

He has a point In the May/June 2016 issue I read a letter lamenting post-1980s motorcycles in this magazine. The writer seemed to claim any motorcycle made after the early 1970s is not a classic. Legally speaking, most if not all states consider a classic to be any motor vehicle built before the moving cutoff of 25-35 years. In my opinion, any motorcycle appreciated enough to survive 25 years in our throw-away society is worthy of classic status in print. There is an abundance written in books and out of print magazines about motorcycles from the “glory years.” Anyone demanding more be written about the most popular and less be written about the overlooked should consider the future of our hobby. Will there be a future if enthusiasts throw affection…

Honda’s baby Interstate wasn’t particularly popular when new, and that means finding a good one today takes patience and a wait-and-see attitude; in a week of looking online we found few for sale, and all of them needed work. That included the 1982 model shown here, which sold for $1,000 on eBay. Complete and showing 21,652 miles, it was last run in 2006 and was advertised with the warning “Needs some TLC.” Sitting doesn’t do a body or a bike good, and after 10 years of immobility this Interstate would need a fair amount of cash thrown at it. You’d need to clean out the entire fuel system and most likely have to rebuild the carburetors (not easy on these bikes) just to get the bike running, which would mean…

Don’t believe what you hear — size doesn’t matter. The 8th Annual The Quail Motorcycle Gathering, held May 14, 2016, took in about 3,000 spectators who viewed approximately 400 motorcycles and bicycles (yep, bicycles), and nobody was disappointed with what they saw. For comparison, the Barber Vintage Festival draws nearly 70,000 people. Yet the 3,000 attendees who paraded the green at The Quail enjoyed something special and intimate, at the end of the day watching Robert Talbott’s clean and precise 1925 BMW R37 roll away with Best of Show honors. Virgil Elings’ sexy 1964 MV August triple took Spirit of The Quail Award, and a bevy of other class awards were presented, too. But even if there wasn’t a single award handed out at The Quail, everybody would go home…

When brothers William G. and Thomas W. Henderson founded the Henderson Motorcycle Co. in Detroit, Michigan, in 1911, their aim was to build a luxurious, reliable, 4-cylinder machine that was better than anything else then on the marketplace. Henderson built 25 examples of their first Four for public sale in 1912, powered by a 57-cubic-inch inline 4-cylinder engine with inlet-over-exhaust valves and chain final drive. In 1913, Carl Clancy became the first man to circumnavigate the globe on two wheels, covering 18,000 miles in 10 months of hard riding aboard his Henderson. That was just the start of record setting for Henderson, whose advertising slogan was “Foremost among Fours.” Alan Bedell, the so-called “Stalwart Californian,” set a new 24-hour speed record by averaging 48mph for 1,154 miles at Ascot Park…

Collectors and restorers of old vehicles are always on the lookout for that elusive “barn find.” We dream of finding an old bike tucked away in a forgotten shed or barn, just waiting for us to come along to awaken it from its years of slumber. It’s as if it was our destiny to cross paths with these long-lost machines. For my son, Craig, and I, the dream was not quite the perfect barn find but more of a “field find.” Craig knew that a friend’s grandfather was in possession of a couple of old bikes. All we knew about them was that one was a Norton; the make of the other bike was unknown. The bikes weren’t for sale, as the grandfather was going to restore them someday. It’s…

It may not look like it, but believe it or not, our project 1970 Honda CB350 is heading into the home stretch. Even though our Honda is missing some critical bits — finished bodywork being at the top of the list — it’s actually very close to being finished. Sticking with our unintentional MO with this project — namely, why don’t we ever have time to get more done? — we’ve accomplished less than we wanted in the intervening time since our last update, yet we’ve moved tantalizingly close to the finish line and the first start of our little 350. As anyone who’s restored or refurbished a bike will tell you, it’s the little things that take the most amount of time. That and forgetting to commit memory to…

The Manzanar National Historic Site is situated on US 395 between Lone Pine and Independence, California, on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Roughly 230 miles north of Los Angeles, it’s a scenic eastern Sierra ride in a stunning setting, but the word I find most appropriate in describing Manzanar is “disturbing.” Oh, the area is beautiful, the weather is usually very nice, and the place itself (as well as the surrounding regions) makes for a great motorcycle ride. The fact that such a place as Manzanar came to be in our country, though, is nearly unfathomable. Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, fear swept the U.S. The result was Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. Effectively brushing aside the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights,…

Some of the earliest motorcycle races were held on beaches and dry lakes. Mother Nature often affords a marvelous surface prep, and Daytona Beach and The Pendine Sands in the U.K. were synonymous with racing and record runs. This was the fifth year for The Race of Gentlemen, or TROG (theraceofgentlemen.com), a retro event celebrating the glory days of beach racing and initially held in Allenhurst, New Jersey, before migrating to Wildwood and now drawing contestants from as far away as Japan and Germany. A totally vintage event, all contestants — both car and motorcycle — must don vintage apparel, including helmets, and even press members on the starting line must wear clothing “of the period.” Pre-1934 cars are featured and motorcycles are limited to 1930-1947 American. The only overhead…

Once upon a time, there was a breed of bike known as a Thumper. A thumper was a 4-stroke single, generally displacing between 350cc to 500cc, and it was known for its great sound, stump-pulling torque and simple maintenance. Some thumpers were slow and basic, but others — the Norton Manx, BSA Gold Star and Velocette Thruxton, for example — were some of the fastest bikes ever made. As time went on, street bikes were increasingly powered by smoother twin, triple and 4-cylinder engines, but the virtues of the single were still evident offroad. Yamaha decided to try its hand at designing a thumper, introducing the XT500 in 1975. A hit with dirt enthusiasts and desert racers, its 500cc singlecylinder engine was repurposed to power the SR500 roadster, which is…

Ever since an enterprising mechanic first fastened a stationary engine to a bicycle, motorcycle builders have been mixing and matching engines and chassis. In the early years, it was usually motivated by expediency. Many motorcycle makers — especially in Britain — were small companies that had started out building bicycles. Most could turn out a motorcycle chassis and running gear, but the expertise, equipment and machine tools to produce a motorcycle engine required a significantly larger investment. As a result, it was not uncommon to find that your Sun, Cotton, Rex, OK-Supreme or even Vincent-HRD was powered by a proprietary engine from Villiers, Blackburne, Rudge or JAP. In fact, the most prestigious bike maker of his day, George Brough, never built an engine of his own, relying on JAP and…

Finding a gem in the rough is a fantasy for everyone in the classic motorcycle hobby. You know the dream, the one where you open a heavy door on creaking hinges, revealing the inside of a dim and dusty shed. Peering into the gloom, soft light glints off the faded chrome of a handlebar. Slowly, the hulking form of an abandoned machine begins to take shape. It can happen, and the world of the internet has made it easier — don’t believe that all of the “barn finds” have been snapped up, because this story is proof that old motorcycles are out there just waiting to be found. Less than two years ago, restorer and rider John Whitby of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was going through his morning routine of combing…

Suzuki’s 1977-1983 2-valve 4-cylinder GS series engine was one of the best. Whether in 550cc, 650cc, 750cc, 850cc or 1,000cc guise, these air-cooled twin-cam fours were praised when new, and over the years they’ve proven themselves to be remarkably robust, able to withstand gross negligence and abuse. That’s good news, because it means that with proper care, you can expect a GS to run, well, almost forever. An often neglected maintenance item on these engines is valve adjustment, although experience shows that gently ridden machines tend to hold to spec for tens of thousands of miles. Our subject 1977 GS750 is a perfect example of this. An original condition survivor, it shows a low 12,500 miles on the odometer and looks like a bike that was only ridden when it…

What: Manzanar National Historic Site, 5001 Highway 395, Independence, CA, 93526, (760) 878-2194. The only National Historic Site dedicated to preserving the heritage of the 10 World War II U.S. War Relocation Centers. Entry is free. How to Get There: Take SR 14 from Los Angeles, California, until it runs into US 395 and continue north. From points north, grab US 395 south. Best Kept Secret: Don’t miss the Cottonwood charcoal kilns just a few miles south of Manzanar (watch for the signs on US 395), and Amigos Mexican Restaurant in Bishop (you can’t go wrong with anything on their comprehensive menu). There’s a lot of unusual metal artwork out in the Mojave Desert; keep an eye open on the western side of US 395 south of Manzanar. Avoid: Not…

9/2 This year marks the 11th anniversary of the Bonneville Vintage GP at the Utah Motorsports Campus (formerly the Miller Motorsports Park) in Tooele, Utah. Saturday will feature the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Bike Show, with Triumph as the featured marque. On Sunday, check out the Suicide Land Cycles Custom Bike Show. Enjoy AHRMA racing and the CB160 races with LeMans starts Saturday and Sunday. On the web at bonnevillevintagegp.com 9/3 Visit the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, Maine, for the Vintage Motorcycle Meet, Sept. 3-4. Owners of pre-1996 motorcycles are encouraged to exhibit and will be admitted free of charge. More than 300 bikes are expected, along with antique planes, Model T rides and more. On the web at owlshead.org 9/11 Head to Camp Dearborn in Milford, Michigan,…