Real Classic January 2018

BSA B31

ISSUE 165 JANUARY 2018 £3.60

BONNEVILLE T100

ARIEL 3!

Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles

RACER! Aermacchi’s Bid For The Stars

WHAT LIES WITHIN

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REALCLASSIC 165; PUBLISHED IN JANUARY 2018

CAMMY CHARMERS......................................6

TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE T100......................48

For a couple of decades before and after the war, if you really wanted to go fast then you needed an overhead cam. Paul Miles rides two black-and-gold beauties back to back, and dares to suggest which one is the better…

Marion Thirsk bought a Hinckley Bonnie to use as a sidecar tug, but liked it so much that it stayed a solo and became her regular ride. How has it coped with 80 miles a day in the Scottish climate?

THE CONTENTS PAGE ....................................3

ARIEL 3 ........................................................60

WE’VE GOT MAIL! ........................................16

AERMACCHI CHIMERA................................28

It was the Swinging Sixties. Time for something fab and groovy. Time for… the Ariel 3? Frank Melling encountered the 50cc tricycle when BSA were building it, and tells a sorry tale

Lots and lots of letters. Lots of folk with lots to say

NORTON COMMANDO Mk3 INTERSTATE...66

READERS’FREE ADS ....................................82

Sleek and super-snazzy, this Latin lightweight stole the limelight at its launch. Which just goes to show that the motorcycle press knows absolutely nothing about what the public wants to buy.

Rowena Hoseason finds it has considerable classic kudos, however BROUGH SUPERIOR SS80 ...........................26

Remember the one that got away? The bike you sold for a fiver which would’ve been worth a fortune these days? Bob Cartwright goes one better, and recalls how he gave away a Brough Superior BSA B31.......................................................40

Is it a motorcycle or a piece of industrial archaeology? And will it start? Martin Gelder enters a whole new (old) world with a big Brit single built in Small Heath

RC REGULARS It’s a whole new year here! Welcome.

Hope to see you soon somewhere!

EVENTS ........................................................78

Wrap up warm, now. Make sure you wear your winter gloves and stout boots

Norton’s last conventional twin was a fine touring machine with a long range indeed. Frank Westworth finds comfort in familiarity

It’s the quiet season for bike sales, we think. Where have all the adverts gone?

PUB TALK .....................................................94

PUB stands aside and lets B44 Clive loose on a vintage Rex Acme combined petroloil tank which is in need of skilled care and attention – as well as a pretty paint job

TELEDRAULIC TECHNICAL..........................86

Associated Motor Cycles fitted their own form of tele front forks to AJS and Matchless motorcycles for over two decades. Martin Peacock puts the bounce back into his G80’s front end

TALES FROM THE SHED .............................100

Fearful time in The Shed. Well… not really.

More like a list of excuses to do nothing!

RE BULLET TIDY-UP ....................................92

Roger Slater couldn’t believe the bad press that Indian Enfields attract in America. To discover the truth he just had to buy one.

And then… well, who can resist a little bit of fettling?

BSA TRACKER PROJECT ..............................98

Work to convert a standard 650 twin into a svelte dirt scrambler continues. This month, Odgie gets creative with his clutch, sorts sprockets, experiments with ignitions, and discovers that the devil lurks in the details…

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P114

TODAY & SAVE

WHO’S D DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC rockete ed into 2018 courtesy of Rowena Hoseason and Fran rank Westworth (aka The Cosmic Bike Co Ltd), and Mike Baumber Baumber, Libby Fincham, Kelvin Clements and rest of the Mortons production team at Horncastle This month’s COVER PHOTO was snapped by Kay Eldridge Heaps more RealClassic reading takes off throughout the month at www.Real-Classic. co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS for the magazine or website should call Helen Martin on 01507 529574, email hrmartin@mortons.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES should be sent to Frank@RealClassic.net or to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX. Please include an SAE if you want something returned or a personal reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on pg114. Call 01507 529529 to subscribe or renew or buy back issues SUBS QUERIES, late deliveries, or changes of address should be directed to 01507 529529, or email subscriptions@realclassic.net ALL MATERIAL in RealClassic is copyright its authors, so please contact us before reproducing anything. RealClassic is printed by William Gibbons & Sons of Wolverhampton. Our ISSN is 1742-2345.

THIS MONTH we’ve been reading DARK PINES (a truly gripping Swedish thriller); X by Sue Grafton (almost the end of Kinsey Millhone’s adventures); BURIED PREY (a real boost to the Lucas Davenport series); SPARE CHANGE by Robert B Parker (groovy tough – lady – cop tale), THE WOLF IN WINTER by John Connolly, sadly dull serial ‘thriller’ which didn’t really have much to say, and AURORA RISING by Alastair Reynolds, who is no relation to Jim Reynolds. We hope. It’s a sci-fi romp, but beware – it’s a reprint, originally published as The Prefect…

MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES… what else is there to say apart from ‘maybe the best Star Wars movie ever’? We reckon Frank needs a Crystal Critter to keep him company in The Shed!

RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK. USA SUBSCRIPTIONS are $58 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI. 54921. Postmaster: Send USA address changes to RealClassic, Motorsport Publications LLC, 715-572-4595 chris@ classicbikebooks.com

FROM ROM THE FRONT

M

agazine welcomes – like this one – are often faintly comic things to write. In this case, I’m writing this some time before Christmas, and you will be reading it in the new year. I want to say welcome to 2018! However … where I’m sitting (being oppressed by the cat, strangely enough) it’s still 2017. But the sentiment applies. A new year is upon us, with all the excitements and entertainments new years often bring.

The passing year – 2017 – was of the seriously challenging variety. All manner of unexpected oddities popped up to make life endlessly interesting, and I’m hoping for a quiet twelve months ahead. Unusually for me, I sold several bikes, including a couple of my all-time favourites, which was something of a wrench. I’m not one for either raging against the dying of the light, and I’m certainly no tim’rous beastie, but the point has arrived at which I’ve finally admitted that in The Shed there are two kinds of bikes: those for riding a decent distance and those for local jaunts and rebuild entertainment.

Until now I’ve somehow kept an awful lot of What-If? machines, as in What If I just replace (anything from a spark plug to a complete power train) then I’d ride it every day…

And there are a few which are simply too heavy – too top-heavy – for me to feel comfortable riding far from home. And it’s no doubt politically incorrect to say this, but as I sprint headlong towards my pension I do not want to endlessly fret that I’ll need to call out the nice man with the yellow van … again. I no longer find the idea that I might not actually get where I’m going to be entertaining. Sad loss of moral fibre, obviously!

Or not.

Do not for one second think that you’re reading unhappiness here. Quite the opposite. What you’re reading is actually mild-mannered excitement at the thought of all the rides I’m setting up for 2018. There’s a whole pile of events which we’ve either never been to or have been compelled to attend in

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a van because we’ve had to carry a stand and boxes of stuff. And I have a completely idiotic notion that I’d like to try to visit all of the remaining Little Chef roadside cafés before they vanish completely! I have no idea why this is, given that they serve very little food I’d actually enjoy eating, but I fancy an excuse to both search them out and then plan entertaining routes to ride there. The choice of riding machine will be decided on the day – depending on distance and weather.

And as you’ll see when you reach The Shed, I’ve actually commenced the endless lunacy which characterises my bike rebuilds. This is a build with a difference – for the first time in several decades my personal challenge is not to build the bike back to basically stock. This time the plan is to produce a mild custom machine, and to be quite honest I’m finding the freedom to go non-stock to be both liberating and fairly scary. Something else to look forward to, then. Hurrah!

Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net

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6 I JANUARY 2017

CAMMYROWDY More old bikes online: Real-Classic.co.uk

NORTON INTER V VELO KTS

Photos by b Paul Pa l Miles

For a couple of decades before and after the war, if you really wanted to go fast then you needed an overhead cam. Paul Miles rides two black-andgold beauties back to back, and dares to suggest which one is the better… Subscribe and save: www.Real-Classic.co.uk/subs

JANUARY 2017 I 7

The engine, most definitely the major selling point of ohc machines in those distant days

M

any long summers ago, as a novice rider, I sat listening to the greybeards discussing the riding sensation of a ‘cammy’ Norton. At the time it seemed odd to single out a Norton. After all, aren’t all four-strokes equipped with camshafts? Older (much) and wiser (…erm) I now understand they were referring to a particular type of Norton single, the ohc International.

Why overhead cam? To win races, cammy engines rev higher and faster, meaning more power. They also cost far more to produce, especially back in the days of skilled labour working on simple machinery. This exotic

Velo’s 1939 brochure reveals that the engine could be supplied either a with a compression ratio of 7.5:1, making it suitable for ‘ethyl spirit’, or 8.4:1, suitable for a 50% petrol / benzol mixture.

Times change

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And here’s how that engine works. It all looks simple to 21st century eyes, but making these relatively complex machines work reliably in the 1930s was not easy at all

and expensive design effectively precluded the sale of ohc machines to the general public, the limited production almost entirely being reserved for the racing fraternity.

Other manufacturers also produced ohc racing singles to devastating effect, notably Velocette in the 350cc class. Where there’s a wallet there’s a way, however, and a small number of machines from each marque tricked onto the market and into the hands of the well-heeled enthusiast.

I was recently fortunate enough to have fine examples of both Velocette and Norton’s bevel-driven loveliness in my shed with the opportunity to compare them – too delicious

a prospect to resist. Although different in capacity (one a 350, the other a 500) and year (with the Velocette being the last model produced before the war and the Norton the first after hostilities had ended), they both exemplify the ‘handbuilt for sporting enthusiasts’ axiom.

KTS ‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday’, the saying goes. Nobody clung to it more than Velocette and their racing machines were very successful, the 350 cammy single being an especially potent weapon. For road use, though, the factory would rather your valves

Velo’s ohc singles used essentially the same transmission arrangements as the ohv machines.

The primary chain runs inboard of the clutch, and the front chaincase extension contains a belt drive to a Miller dynamo, which in turn has its voltage control box perched on top

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NORTON INTER V VELO KTS

from the factory in 1939 and the four-speed, 25bhp, 265lb machine rests on 19” wheels protected by heavily valanced mudguards.

The differences between the two models effectively ended there. This example has only had three owners in its near 80-year life and has never been fully restored. Wearing its age astonishingly well, it looks every inch the quintessential pre-war British aristocrat.

Quality exudes from every casting, the lines of the tinware and overall fit and finish.

High end 1930s machines benefit from the decades of skilled craftsmanship coupled with emerging new technologies and a mentality where price is secondary to product

– something we see the almost total inversion of in the post-war era. It was described to me as a ‘gentlemen’s express’ and is, perhaps, the two-wheeled equivalent of a Bentley.

Starting a Velocette is often fraught with drama and I feared the worst, but, provided the instructions were followed to the letter, the narrow-crankcase cammy fired up first kick virtually every time, settling quickly into a rock-steady idle. The almost-too-quiet engine rustling its camshaft, offset by the gentle chuff from the fishtail, the KTS seemed too, well, nice, to be considered a roadgoing racer.

The four-speed, positive-stop gearbox, another Velocette first, proved beyond criticism, as was the faultless clutch. The troublesome nature of post-war Velo clutches reflects, perhaps, the company’s changing attitudes towards profit, rather than innate poor design.

The KTS’s performance was bright, with power building steadily and the engine feeling unflustered. Gear ratios were well spaced allowing it to quickly reach its natural cruising speed of… 55mph. The handling and brakes were as good as almost anything I’ve ridden from the era and complemented the performance perfectly.

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JANUARY 2018 I 9

Above: Velocette’s camshaft single, seen here in road-going KTS form, apparently the TS stands for Touring Sports.

Seems fair Left: Veloce certainly understood who rode their motorcycles!

were operated by pushrods. Rumour had it that Veloce Ltd lost money on every new ohc bike produced for retail.

Designed by Percy Goodman in 1924, the K (Kamshaft) models were powerful and reliable racers, with the over-the-counter KTT crowding the grids at racetracks around the world. TT winners in 1926, 28 and 29, their prowess was easy to spot. By 1936, the Mk2 version, including an all-alloy engine with enclosed valves, was offered for sale. Available in two forms, the KSS (super sports) had larger wheels and skinnier mudguards than the otherwise very similar KTS (touring sports).

The KTS you see on these pages emerged

View from Velo heaven, reveals the sportingly bare handlebar layout, and the top links of the girder forks

Utterly delightful to ride, gently chuffing around the Dorset lanes, feeling unbreakable and relaxing to ride, it was hard to believe this sophisticated single, albeit one of relatively modest capacity, could in the right hands be a potent racing weapon, capable of being hurled around the TT course. And yet, the robustness Velocette had engineered into their ohc machines meant precisely that, with the cammy engine reliably delivering whatever performance it had all day long. To finish first, one must first finish and all that.

I have little doubt the KTS would have steadily motored me to John O’Groats without complaint or special preparation, it was that good. But it would prefer to do so at 50mph, with the 80mph top speed being reserved for special occasions only.

NORTON MODEL 30 Norton’s ohc engine, like the Velocette, also originated in the roaring Twenties with the CS1, although the exposed hairspring valve

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International model first appeared in 1931.

Technically available as a roadgoing machine, the Inter was really the preserve of racers, both factory sponsored and privateers, with riders like Stanley Woods and Jimmie Guthrie becoming household names in the era.

Factory racing specification didn’t really filter into the road machines as so few were actually purchased as pure roadgoing motorcycles, but by 1938 the racer could specify plunger rear suspension, the new Roadholder telescopic forks and an all alloy engine – providing he knew the right people to ask.

So fast and rugged was the Inter that Model 30s were issued to the military police, under the control of Sir Malcolm Campbell, for fast protection of the Royal family should they need urgent evacuation in the event of a German invasion.

WW2 ended production of course and it wasn’t until 1947, the model year of this machine, that ohc production finally resumed. Available in two capacities, 350cc

No shot of a Velo single – any Velo single! – is complete without the fishtail

(M40) and 500cc (M30) Norton had finally begun to standardise specifications. All machines now came equipped with the ‘garden gate’ plunger frame and long Roadholder forks. The engine was only available in iron head and barrel form, and a close ratio gearbox was supplied as standard.

The Model 30 500cc machine on these pages is an older restoration. Like most other Inters it has some racing history, and was entered for the 1947 IoM TT. Restored to road specifications around 30 years ago it is fairly representative of an ex-factory road machine, although some of the controls are pattern. The 29.5bhp Norton

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JANUARY 2018 I 11

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