In May of 2005, I took a short trip to Corvallis for the annual Oregon Vintage Motorcyclist Annual Show & Swap Meet. It was the beginning of the era of affordable digital cameras, and I wanted to shoot some interesting motorcycles with my new Fuji S3000. For its time it was a fairly advanced amateur camera with 3.2 mega pixels, but any phone today takes much better pictures.
Let’s look at the European bikes first. I believe that Vincents were the featured make at that year’s show. In the years since I’ve taken these photos, I have never seen as many of these classics in one place.
A Norvin is a Vincent motor fitted into a Norton frame. The results are impressive.
This 1971 Norton Commando is just beautiful.
This Sunbeam S7 is a 500cc longitudinally mounted inline vertical OHC 500 cc twin with shaft drive. While very high tech for the late 1940’s, this design never really caught on. Triumph recently made a modern version called the Rocket III.
Which BSA was the hot rod? Count your carbs. The blue Royal Star has one. The sportier Lightning 650 has two.
The Velocette LE (little engine) is a fascinating motorcycle. Its 150cc water cooled shaft drive boxer twin is like a mini BMW. These were expensive, well made motorcycles.
This old Harley Davidson Hummer means we have moved onto the American bikes.
This is a very rare 1942 Harley Davidson XA (Experimental Army). Only 1000 of these shaft driven BMW R71 based models were made for the US Army. I wonder what this bike looks like today.
Finally, the Japanese motorcycles. When I look at these photos, I can easily see how Japan changed the industry in the sixties and seventies. While some of these machines may lack the class and history of their European and American competitors, their engineering was on another level.
Those Honda motors are works of art.
These are some great Suzuki trail bikes. The 100 has a dual range transmission.
My first motorcycle was a Hodaka, so this Super Rat with a Webco head brings back fond memories.
By the end of the Seventies, Honda could seemingly do anything it wanted to do. The CBX was outrageous and excessive. But it was also smooth, reliable, and made 103 HP @ 9000 RPM. The European and American manufactures would of course survive, but Japan was now the dominant player.
Love the Vincents, great bikes, I knew a guy who classic raced a Norvin it was a Black Shadow motor in a genuine Manx frame, both bikes complete today are worth their weight in gold, it was quick enough and ran the original Vincent speedo with the red lines at max in each gear the shift point into top was at 107mph, braking was pre 63 as required for that race class and not brilliant.
Like harleys but indians are so cool . I saw them for the first time at space farms museuem in new jersey . Lots of cool stuf to see there . Don’t be misled about the name space farms because its not about outer space
Love that Benly 150. Needs white walls to truly be the motorcycle equivalent of Pee Wee Herman’s bicycle.
If only I could find one….In the basement….At the Alamo 🙂
I’m partial to that yellow Hummer. Having driven one ages ago, I developed a fondness for them. Just the thing for a little ride around the neighborhood. Yellow too! Yumm.
What is that thing attached to the fork at the tipple tree?
Beats me! Curious…
Looks like a vintage registration older maybe .
-Nate
Nice photos, thanx for posting .
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I remember most of the Motos from my wasted youth .
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I ran Honda Dreams and Benly’s (“Benly” means ‘Convenient’ in Japanese) in the early 1970’s when they were old and worthless .
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-Nate
As a Honda rider is it wrong that I like the Nortons and BSAs the best? I wouldn’t say no to the CBX though. And that instrument cluster with the vertical odometer on the old Honda is awesome.
This takes me a while to write, because I just spent the last half hour going over and over the pictures, drooling.
That pair of unit BSA’s brought back memories, because I had one of the blue Royal Star’s. The black Lightning is a 69 or 70, 650cc with 44hp. I’m guessing the Royal star is a couple of years earlier (probably 66 or 67). 500cc with 22hp. The best example I’ve ever ridden of the old adage “it’s more fun to go fast on a slow bike, than to go slow on a fast bike.”
That little red Honda is a 66-68 Super 90. I had a 69, identical except for chrome fenders. The bike I always wanted in high school, finally got mine in 1996, thirty years after the original request.
I’ve never seen a Harley XA in the metal. Now, if someone only could have had the competing transverse engined (think Moto Guzzi) Indian that was under development at the same time. It would have been an interesting contrast.
The Sunbeam was fascinating, but didn’t have a terribly good reputation. A fascinating design that was released way underdeveloped, and had a lousy reputation for reliability.
Heres an across the frame Indian Vtwin its local the owner rides it a lot I caught it stationary at a show a friend sponsored
That bike should have been the new postwar Indian, but when the government cancelled Indian’s defense contract they also stiffed the company on reimbursing for the development costs. Indian, although mildly profitable in the years leading up to the war, was still financially weak as a result of the Depression years, and couldn’t afford to finish developing the bike. So you got rehashes of the prewar V-twin bikes in 1946.
Then there was the ownership change at about the same time. The DuPont’s decided to sell out, and the new owner was convinced that a small (500cc) vertical twin was the way to go . . . . . . .
That bike was the final nail in Springfield Indian’s coffin.
Norvins were generally frowned upon because the engine had to be irreversibly chopped in order to make it fit. Seen as sacrilege by all those who worship at the Vincent altar.
An A65 is a solid classic, cheap enough to buy and good to own. They handle well, engines are solid enough and there are plenty of parts. I’m keeping an eye out; if one turns up in decent condition at the right price, I’m pretty sure I can make a space in my garage.
The one I mentioned above cost five quid the Manx it went into was pulled from a rubbish skip owned by an English guy who emigrated with his bikes to NZ he had another complete Vincent Rapide and a restored Manx Norton all bought for peanuts at the bottom of their value in the UK, yes you saw the gearbox off the Vincent motor and use the Norton box at the time I was pit crew for a mate who had a Norstar Norton slimline feather bed frame BSA 500 Gold star engine, these hybrids were popular for pre 63 classic racing.
The one weakness to an A50/A65 is that the engine had ONE main bearing and a bushing on the other end. I actually had an old BSA dealer tell me, with a straight face, that you could get 5000 miles out of a bottom end before it had to be rebuilt! Yeah, have your motor torn down every year for a rebuild! (And you wonder why the Japanese took over?)
The A50, having only half the power (despite it’s looks it’s not a sport bike like the 650’s, it’s a daily go-to-work commuter) wasn’t affected. At least I got about 6500 miles on mine over the years without any noticeable problems.
There is a very standard conversion to add a second bearing to the crank, considered mandatory nowadays if you’re building a motor from the ground up. Otherwise, 69-70’s are the best years, 68’s is almost as good (front brake isn’t quite up to the later models), 71-72’s are good bikes if you can get past the reputation as the “bike that killed BSA”. 71’s with the Dove Grey frames are very uncommon, I’ve noticed a few restored models where the owner painted the frame in 72 black.
Earlier unit twins (62-67) are quite nice, but a lot harder to find if you’re looking in the states. 68-70 were the big years for BSA/Triumph, after that it was all downhill fast.
“(And you wonder why the Japanese took over?)”
Arrogance and inertia are what did in British auto/motorbike industry, and nearly killed ours. It wasn’t lack of technical capability, it was corporate laziness underpinned by a “nobody will ever buy that Japanese junk” mindset.
“But it was also smooth, reliable, and made 103 HP @ 9000 RPM”
and today, the FZ-09 I just got does that with 3 cylinders.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the size scale…
Went to a show at the Packard Proving Grounds yesterday. While mostly about cars, there was an expanded show of vintage bicycles in one of the garages, including several Whizzers, with an engine and belt drive.
This Simplex caught my eye. The card said it had a transmission, so I took a closer look. Sure enough, the bike has a CVT, like it’s the love child of a Whizzer and a DAF.
A closer look.
And closer
That is not an XA, that is a late model M72.
Thanx for the pics. Love it.
That CBX is more than welcome to follow me home!
I think that was actually the BMW. The HDs had a two inch extended springer fork. These became the hot set for bob jobs after the war. They actually started the whole extended fork craze. HD also had a front/back oriented opposed twin called the sport job. The engine displaced 350cc. The motor and drivechain were fully enclosed. This model was quite popular with women riders at the time.
here’s the right photo.
All this fantastic Education, and it’s _FREE_ ! =8-) .
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-Nate