Features

Leopoldo Tartarini and Giorgio Monetti at start of the round-the-world trip. Leopoldo Tartarini was the founder of Italjet, the small but highly innovative Italian manufacturer he established in 1960. During its 44 years of existence, Italjet developed more than 150 different imaginatively designed motorcycle and scooter models, most of them personally created by Tartarini, in…

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The 1929 Gnome et Rhone, owned by Tim Moore, heads up the line of motorcycles. With our classic vehicle interests, we are, perhaps, often guilty of preaching to the converted, in that many of our shows and events attract the already interested, while those with a casual, or even passing, interest don’t necessarily feel the…

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J W Bishop (AJS) sticks out a leg and tried to sneak through the inside. The remarkable turnout made for a fantastic start to the day’s racing. The competitors were in good spirits thanks to the mild weather and the vast, excited crowd, and the officials were happy as they had very few hiccups to…

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Nigel Waring with his bespoke Commando. The fact that the Norton Commando was voted by readers of Motor Cycle News as their ‘machine of the year’ every year from 1968 to 1972 has been one of those facts I’ve never really quite been able to grasp. That is meant as no slight, really, on the…

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Three generations of the Bowen family – Noah and Sarah Fernon plus Graham and Emma Bowen. The Triumph is a 1965 T120C. Paul Cann’s rare-to-the-UK 1968 Suzuki T305 scooped the Best In Show accolade at the recent Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show at Stafford. The 305cc T305 Raider was produced for US markets, and…

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A temporary army camp was established by the Brooklands Clubhouse. In the foreground is Peter Birket’s Triumph Model H. Great War 100 was billed as commemorating Brooklands’ role in the First World War. In 1915, the Surrey aerodrome and racetrack had only been open a few years before Britain was at war and the location’s…

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Hennie Van Maarseveen, on her Triumph, beneath the big Dutch sky. When members of the Netherlands Motorcycle Club visited the Isle of Man for the 1911 Tourist Trophy they came up with the idea of an international contest between them and the Brits. The rules were simple: each country would field 18 riders – two…

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By the Sunday, every vantage point was packed. Government Acre is a large flat grass area at the top of the Western Cliff at Ramsgate, at the eastern end of Kent. Used occasionally as a venue for classic vehicle events, it provides a commanding view of the Undercliff, the esplanade road that was one of…

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A few machines in the line up. The purchase of a Wanderer from the veteran period in need of more than a bit of TLC had me scratching my head. Help was needed, so I took the engine and photographs to the Sunbeam MCC’s Pioneer Run finish at Brighton, in March. There, I met up…

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Pete Beeton with two of the Ariels he has expertly refurbished. Pete Beeton was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, in 1945, to sidecar racing star Jackie Beeton and his wife Vera. From an early age, Pete became part of the ‘sidecar racing kids club’ along with a young Micky Boddice, Norman, Peter, Roy and Beryl Hanks,…

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