Features

1938 Harley-Davidson Model ULH Imagine, if you can, that you are a novice rider who has just been hoisted into the saddle of a horse. And I mean a proper horse, too. Not a cute little Shetland pony, not a staid old dray horse, but a fast and powerful hunter. Now imagine (bear with me,…

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1968 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide One hundred years of continuous manufacture and over 3,000,000 motorcycles later, Harley-Davidson is still going strong. The company started slowly, building only three machines in their first year, suffered lean periods during the Thirties and again dropped to under 10,000 models in 1963. They struggled with quality control during the AMF…

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Indian Standard A man walks into an agricultural workshop and says: “Can you make me a compressor from this engine please?” It should be a joke and it should have a punch line but instead of it being a couple of lines, it turned into a tale of epic proportions. Mark Williams was just a…

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1915 Henderson Model E 1065cc When William G. Henderson announced his four cylinder motor cycle to the world in November 1911, it was not shattering news. The FN and Pierce fours had broken the ground, and multi-cylindered designs had found acceptance. The Henderson, however, was very well received, and its specification promised great things. Mechanically…

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1947 Douglas T35 Despite its loyal and dedicated workforce – headed by prewar Douglas legend and TT winner Freddie Dixon – the firm rather stumbled from crisis to crisis, though gained much needed revenue and work by manufacturing under licence Vespa scooters, from 1951. There were plans for the 1957 season, centring on the new…

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Fergus Anderson and AJS Anderson didn’t make his TT debut until 1939, aged 30, then of course war intervened, during which he served in the navy as skipper of an Admiralty ferry crew and was mentioned in dispatches. By the time of our photograph, Fergus Anderson was already 40 years old, an age when many…

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Cleaning barrel threads with a tap will remove build up of corrosion from base of studs In common with most things in life, we want the best of both worlds – studs that won’t budge in situ but are removed with a mere twist on demand. For secure stud fastening, makers tightened studs dry into…

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Bristol Classic MotorCycle Show weekend is February 16-17. Don’t miss it! The Bristol Classic Motorcycle Show is almost as old as the International though and, despite the name, is held near Shepton Mallet rather than in the Bristol Dockland Warehouse where it originated. Attendance grows each year, with plenty of room to expand, with close…

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Velocette Model K The Mk.I (distinguished by the exposed valve gear) was to continue until 1935, when it gave way to the more sophisticated (enclosed valve gear, so cleaner) Mk.II, for road-going use anyway. By then, the racers were differently ‘coded’ though the lineage was clear. Mk.Is continued to give good service to sporting riders…

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Basically, Ghersi used a different make of spark plug than specified on his entry form. It was decided, some hours after the race had finished, to exclude him and the Guzzi from the final results but bizarrely not strip him of his fastest lap accolade, the official explanation being he was excluded from the final…

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