Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Real Classic

Enfield now offer their 650 twin in half a dozen different trims, with the standard Interceptor listed at £6399 in the UK. However, brand new 2024 models can be found online for £5600, with some pre-registered / zero miles machines offered for under £5k. Going back to the official list prices, the special edition ‘Interceptor Lightning’, equipped to tour with panniers, flyscreen, sumpguard and crash bars, is priced at £6459. The ‘Thunder’ specification of the café racer Continental GT – much the same as the Lightning but less comfortable! -- costs £6659, while the bobberish Shotgun is £6699. Top of the range comes the Super Meteor at £7299, almost £2500 more than the cheapest brand-new Interceptor. When you start looking at used bikes, there’s a substantial selection of secondhand bikes…

The Sammy Miller Museum in New Milton, Hampshire, UK is crammed full of interesting machines – including one of the biggest collections of exotic racing bikes in the world, and all are runners! These include the V8 Moto Guzzi, AJS Porcupine, Mondial 250 with dustbin fairing, Nortons, Ducatis, Suzukis, Hondas, Velocettes and many more! The Road Bike Hall includes a huge collection of factory prototypes and exotic designs from all over the world, and of course there are plenty of dirtbikes and trial icons, too – over 400 bikes in total. The Museum is open to visitors daily from 10am every day at New Milton, Hampshire B25 5SZ. 01425 620777 / www.sammymiller.co.uk…

At last year’s Scottish Classic Bike Show at Ayr, I’d entered my Honda CB175 and was wandering around, looking at the other exhibits and being dazzled by the fine machinery on display. Sitting quietly in a corner was a bike that I recognised from a social media page, an oil-in-frame TR6R Tiger of 1973 vintage. Why would an OiF Tiger attract my attention? I always preferred the colour scheme of the early 1970s Tiger to the gold Bonneville. I also (weirdly) prefer the breadbin tank to the export tank. It seems to fit the bike better in my opinion (please don’t berate me!). I’d watched a comprehensive thread online that covered the restoration of this very bike. My interest grew when I found out it was for sale… so I…

PART FOUR Next the stainless, Commando-type mudguards needed fitting. The pre-drilled front went on easily with one set of stays, carrying a mudflap. Fitting the rear guard required a useable seat, as the mudguard is attached to a bracket on the seat with a Dsuz fastener. Doris the Dominator came to me with a pattern seat with a base that required welding. I’d been looking for replacement seats for some time. Leightons didn’t have any suitable seat pans available but did quote to reupholster my seat and refurbish the base. There were none in stock anywhere and no prospect of finding one anytime soon. I was at the point of packing the old base to send to Leightons when I advertised through the Nortons Owners’ Club. An email arrived from…

This is hardly an original thought, but it is certainly a truism that time flies – and it flies ever faster with the passing of the years. Which is of course, entirely subjective; time passes at the same speed no matter what, it’s our perception of it that changes. And where, exactly, did this cod philosophising come from? Well, it exploded from a conversation I was enjoying concerning the Triumph T120V Bonneville which has infested these pages over recent issues. My pal wondered whether the Triumph was a modern one. I agreed that it was indeed. He then wondered which model it was – a T120, I told him, smugly. ‘Aha!’he replied, triumphantly. ‘The one with twin discs!’ I was inevitably but completely confused. But only for a moment. My…

So now it's your turn. How many RC readers, we wondered, have experienced the delights of T160 ownership? Quite a few as it turns out… 'The first photo shows me collecting one of the last T160s in April 1976. Pleased as punch, having traded in a most vibratory T140. The next image is the same T160 (known as Strider) today, 48 years later. A very competent bike, looked after by an unskilled owner. Mostly trouble-free, though a front downtube breakage in France when just over a year old caused problems nursing it back home. The factory found a replacement front frame however, despite it being out of warranty. Frank wrote up the bike's story which appeared in RC116. In April 2026 we'll have been together for 50 years! Charlie Webster…

It all depends on whether you read an issue of our unusual and only slightly chaotic magazine in order – front to back – or in another, possibly less traditional way. If, for example, you started reading this issue from the back, you will already have read all about the trials, tribulations and other characterful experiences which surrounded our actually getting down to writing about our own old bikes. Only a couple of months back, we dragged our approximately hand-painted, decently rusty but entirely entertaining Norton Navigator out for a day of romping around our local lanes so that I could report on it. If you’ve already read that story, then you’ll already be aware that I do indeed have a soft spot for AMC’s attempts at supplying the market…

It is often the case that the best example of a bike is found at the very end of the model’s life. This is certainly true of the 450 Desmo Ducati of 1973, which can trace some elements of its bloodline all the way back to Ducati’s 1956 125 GP racer. But Ducati’s post-war success go back even further than that. Immediately before WW2, Ducati was a radio company; an extremely successful one. The Ducati brothers, Bruno and Cavalieri, were world leaders in the production of short wave radios and had been the key supplier to the Italian Navy since 1924. In 1935, they opened a state of the art factory at Borgo Panigale, Bologna, employing over 7000 staff. The factory was air-conditioned and used the very latest, very best…

BIKES TRIUMPH TROPHY pre-unit, 1961. This low ownership is for the purist and in superb standard condition with all numbers matching, original registration number, club authenticity certificate and buff logbook. Ready to ride / show with new stainless rims and correct Avon period tyres. If you’re looking for a genuine pre-unit Trophy this is the one. £12,495. Can email photos. 07960 447592 HONDA CB72, 1965. In pristine condition. New chain and sprockets, tyres. On SORN. Start up once a week to keep it fresh. £4250ono. Barnsley 07306 851368 or normaandmoz@hotmail.co.uk WANTS VELOCETTE, BSA SINGLE AND TRIUMPH PRE-UNIT SPARES WANTED. Anything considered for my ongoing projects. Any quantity. Will consider complete bike for restoration. 07983 832076, Staffs BITS CB450 K1, 1968-71. V. rare parts. Tank complete with round badges and knee…

PART FIVE From my perspective it’s been a while since I updated my running record about this project. You get to read it regularly every month, and I do my best to make it seem fairly seamless, but in reality there’s lots of other stuff going on in the shed. Like I said last month, time’s a trip, man. So sometimes I might write two episodes in a week, and then it might be weeks before I write the next one. In this case, I’ve been sidetracked by the B60FT. After a winter where we lost virtually every round due to the weather, we finally had a track good enough for a practice session. I don’t do practices normally, doing races alone makes a hefty dint in the state pension…

FRANK WESTWORTH RealClassic When life sends you lemons, it’s plainly time to give up being teetotal and reach for that bottle of Big Peat which is safely stored somewhere safe and take a refreshing, fortifying sip. And so it was, gentle reader, that when it became clear back in January that I was likely to be off the road – and even possibly out of The Shed, perish the thought – for some time due to a medical procedure hoving into view I decided to get my ducks in a row and get well ahead with feature bikes for a couple of future issues of the magazine. Thanks for your concern, by the way, it’s all over now, as we say at times like these. Think about the timing. It was…

Hang on, I hear you holler, the T160 was introduced in 1975, surely? How can it be 50 years old in 2024? Your memory does not play tricks on you: the final factory version of the BSA-Triumph triple was indeed listed for 1975. But the first production bike – T160 00257 – was built in Brum on 7th December 1974. So the TR3OC’s 50th anniversary event could arguably fall in either 2024 or 2025, or even both. What’s not to love about a good excuse foraparty? The triple story started an entire decade earlier, with Bert Hopwood and Doug Hele searching for the future of the British bike industry. BSA-Triumph needed a fast fix using existing parts and tooling to enter the superbike class.Atriple wasapragmatic solution, intended to circumvent the…

Prices of electric-start Tridents were firmly in five figures just a couple of years ago, and some traders are still asking big money for quite average machines. A tidy 1975 machine was offered recently for £12k by a Harley dealership, for instance. That Trident was originally exported when new, has only changed hands once previously, and clocked up just 15,000 miles. It came back to the UK in 2021. It's very shiny but… twelve grand? Rather more realistic, a private seller advertised a red and white, ride or restore example this summer for £6995. The engine starts, runs and idles although the electric start is a bit 'temperamental.' There's 'no significant oil leaks; bit of misting here and there and small drip from tacho drive after a run.' The T160…

RealClassic ROYAL ENFIELD INTERCEPTOR 650 Royal Enfield have come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, with a wide range of models to suit different customers. The Interceptor 650, Continental GT and the other 650 twins have been quite the success story. The Interceptor was judged to be the ‘best retro’ by the mainstream media when it was launched, and it stayed in the UK top ten best-selling bikes for the next couple of years. Although the company can trace its engineering origins back to 1891, the first Royal Enfield motorcycle was made in 1901. In 1955 a subsidiary was opened with Madras Motors in India to build 350 Bullets. While the Redditch and Bradford on Avon factories finally folded in 1970, Enfield India starting exporting coals to…

RealClassic GRINDLAY PEERLESS ST1 The 1920s was a decade brimming with technical innovation in motorcycle engine design, which gave rise to numerous alternative solutions to providing motive power on two wheels, as engineers all over Europe – and in America, too – sought to work out the best way to make these new-fangled motorcycles work best. Among the many different ways of answering that conundrum was the sleevevalve engine, fitted for four short years from 1923-27 by British manufacturer Grindlay Peerless to its range of motorcycles built in Coventry, already the heartland of Britain’s motorcycle industry. There, in 1910, local car fitter foreman Bob Grindlay – later to be Lord Mayor of Coventry during WW2 and the Luftwaffe’s devastating blitzkrieg on the city – had founded Grindlay Sidecars to build high-quality…

ROYAL ENFIELD CONSTELLATION RealClassic PART THE LAST After last month’s efforts I hoped the machine was ready to move under its own power, always an exciting if not always rewarding experience. My first run of a few miles taken proved successful, and with just a few checks and adjustments I soon ventured further. A 15 mile round trip went well enough and hot starting after arriving back at base seemed fine. But… There’s nearly always a but or two, isn’t there? There was a small oil leak from between the cylinder barrels at the top of the crankcases. This was not whatIwanted to see.Iinformed the owner, pointing out that it was indeed a small leak. He collected the machine but soon decided he would like the leak dealt with. I thought…