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ELEGANCE IN MOTION: 1962 BMW R60/2
In the 1960s, BSA was known for flashy bikes with bright colors and lots of chrome, but there was more to the English import than just shine.
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1963 ROYAL ENFIELD INTERCEPTOR
DREAM MACHINE: 1966 HONDA CA77
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1961 HARLEY-DAVIDSON FLH PANHEAD
BLACK SIDE DOWN The editor speaks.
HOT ROD BSA: 1967 SPITFIRE MARK III
All dressed up in angular sheet metal, the Honda Dream is instantly recognizable as a machine of the 1960s.
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VELOCETTE THRUXTON: TWO FISHTAILS Despite its small size, Veloce Ltd., makers of Velocette motorcycles, was known for its advanced technology.
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“D” FOR DESMO: 1969 DUCATI 350 MK3 D Found and bought at the 2010 Barber Vintage Festival, this Ducati has been restored to perfection.
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MOTORCYCLE CLASSICS
The 750 Interceptor Mk1 went head-to-head in the showrooms with the new Norton Atlas 750.
In 1961, there was nothing on the market quite like the big 648-pound Harley FLH.
1966 HONDA CB450 BLACK BOMBER Loaded with technology, the CB450 put the world on notice that Honda was playing to win.
AMERICA’S BRIT BIKE: TRIUMPH T120 1967 was Triumph’s best year ever in the U.S., and the T120 Bonneville was its most popular model.
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Lovingly restored and now ridden faithfully, this R60/2 hits the sweet spot.
Street Bikes of the ’60s
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SPANISH DELIGHT: 1965 BULTACO METRALLA Never well known in the U.S., Bultaco made trials and motocross bikes, not to mention exceptional street bikes like the Metralla.
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1966 NORTON P11 PROTOTYPE REPLICA It was 1966 when Bob Blair and his mechanic/parts manager Steve Zabaro worked together to blend components from two motorcycles to create the prototype of the 1967 Norton P11.
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ON THE HUNT: 1969 KAWASAKI H1 The 1969 Kawasaki H1 was noisy, blew blue smoke and attracted troublemakers — who wouldn’t want one?
PAST PERFECT: MOTO GUZZI V700 In our back-to-the-future world, everything old looks new again. Moto Guzzi fan George Dockray builds a better V700.
JEFF BARGER
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TWO-STROKE SCRAMBLE: YAMAHA BIG BEAR When Al Roller came across the 1968 Yamaha YDS-3C Big Bear in 2000, he tore it down to the frame and restored it to perfection. A few years later, it won Best Restored Japanese bike at the 2013 Motorcycle Classics Vintage Bike show at Road America.
1968 TRIUMPH TRIDENT T150 When Triumph launched its new-for-1968 Triumph Trident T150 triple, the magazine motorheads took notice. “For you performance buffs, let us state that the Trident is the fastest street machine we have tested, bar none,” Cycle Guide enthused.
PARTING SHOTS: A GRAND DAY OUT ON A NORTON COMMANDO Cam Norris awakes to a beautiful summer morning, keen to take a joyful ride aboard his classic 1969 Norton Commando S.
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ROBERT SMITH
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GARY PHELPS
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Ducati brought the new frame and wide driven to the event, as he had no plans to laid-out narrow motorcycle than you can case engine design to the street in 1968, purchase a motorcycle. Luckily, friend Erik to the fat bikes, and the result is a feeling first in the street-legal 350cc Scrambler, Eskildsen was driving through to Florida of instant confidence … the Ducatis feel then also in 250cc and 450cc models. All with his truck. He told Don if he found as though they had been built just for of these used a bevel drive overhead cam something he couldn’t live without he you, and that they weren’t something that with valve springs. During 1968, Ducati would haul it south with him, and bring it came out of a crate,” Cycle said. finally brought a desmo to the street with home to Wisconsin in the spring. Of the 350cc desmo engine, they wrote: the launch of the 250 and 350 Mark 3 D — Don was drawn to a Benelli being sold “The 350 was more highly tuned and had “D” for Desmo. by father and son team Dwight and (the a narrower powerband; the power came The 1968 Ducati Mark 3 D late) Brian Corley. The Benelli was featured a red frame, a red and already spoken for, but then he chrome gas tank with twin-filler noticed a Ducati single-cylinder caps, chrome fenders, steel rims, engine. a high-lift cam and a tachometer. “The head had been removed,” In 1969, the 250 and 350 were Don says. “Dwight told me the joined by a 450 Mark 3 D, and desmo head was good, but the they were outfitted with a black engine was seized.” Dwight picks frame and a single-cap fuel tank up the story. “My son and I were and chrome fenders. Non-desmo mostly into British bikes, but Ducatis feature a dull silver paint we heard about this Ducati in in place of the chrome. Georgia, so we went to have a Ducati’s 350cc single-cylinder look at it — it had seen years desmo engine is all alloy with of exposure, but we picked it up polished cases and massive finthinking we might be able to redo ning on the barrel, which features it. The more we looked at it the a cast-iron liner. Bore and stroke more we thought somebody else are 76mm by 75mm for a capacity could probably do something of 340cc, with a 10:1 compression better with it.” ratio. The 5-speed unit construcThe rest of the bike was stored tion gearbox has a heel/toe shiftin the Corleys’ trailer behind their er on the right side of the engine, The desmo singles are all based on the “wide case” block. camper. “The bike was a wreck,” with the kickstarter on the left. Don explains. “The wheels were Cycle magazine tested the Mark 3 D frozen and badly rusted, the alloy hubs in at about 6,500rpm. The 350 is tuned as Ducatis, including the 250, 350 and 450 were crusty and the entire bike was rusty. a street dragster; the 250 and the 450 are models, which, apart from engine size, There was a dented Ducati Scrambler tank over-the-road bikes.” are of the same overall dimensions. “The and a high handlebar on it.” However, Don’s 350 D Ducati’s single-cylinder engine has narrow because it had a Desmo engine, Don paid Don found his 1969 350 D at the 2010 cases; therefore, the frame, the tank and the Corleys $1,500 and had Erik haul it Barber Vintage Festival swap meet in the footpegs can all be very narrow, too. home to Appleton, Wis., by way of Florida. Birmingham, Ala. He and a friend had You can fit yourself more easily to a wellDon didn’t get to work on the bike until www.MotorcycleClassics.com
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to motorcycling. I had more free time, and I wanted to go back to something I enjoyed.” Roger found himself drawn to restoring and collecting the Japanese classics. “I first got a Kawasaki W650 — one of the new classic-appearing bikes,” he says. “Later, I found a 1976 Honda 750, a real classic. I did a few restorations, and I settled on the idea of a Bomber. When my wife, Ann, and I were at a motorcycle show, she was really taken with one that was there — the appearance, the proportions.” Roger then went out on a search mission. Bike broker Allan Siekman had a frame for him, but even with eBay, locating parts was challenging. Although many of the engine parts are easily available, sheet metal, especially one-year-only parts like the front suspension, tank and seat, are hard to find. “I tapped into the old Japanese bike network,” Roger remembers. “I found David Silver Spares in the U.K., one of the best sources for pre-1970 parts. This is where belonging to a club and being part of the network comes in. People are willing to help one another.
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Street Bikes of the ’60s
“People who need a part will often make more than one. For example, a gentleman in South Carolina had extra seat hinges manufactured during his own Bomber restoration. Greg Clauss, of Clauss Studios, is a friend who makes parts in rubber and plastic. People call me for help locating parts. Someone called me just the other night, and I did what I could.” He continues: “The key to completing a restoration is understanding the sequence of events. Things come together in a certain order. You also have to know your strengths and limitations. I try to avoid engine rebuilding, so I look for an engine in good condition. With the Bomber, that was not possible, so I had Charlie at Charlie’s Place in San Francisco [now in Los Angeles, California] do the rebuild on this bike engine.” Roger explains that one of the key decisions to be made early on in the restoration is whether the bike is to be a rider or a show bike. “What you aim at is what you will end up with,” he says. “For me, the bike was restored and built to ride. I bought new tires and updated the electronics. The charging system
blue smoke, and the kind of people who wanted to ride it were also the kind of people, like Hans, who got into trouble on motorcycles. The handling problems and the fade-prone brakes did not help matters. Kawasaki, concerned about bad publicity and liability lawsuits, started to back down. Increasingly, the beast was tamed. For 1970, the frame and suspension were improved, and the ignition cover was redesigned to make the ignition more watertight. More extensive changes appeared in 1971. The front forks were more heavily damped, the rear shocks were improved and the electronic ignition, which often failed on the 1969 version, was updated. Unfortunately, the brakes still faded
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badly. A side effect of a more efficient, quieter and less smoky engine was that quarter-mile times were no longer in the 12s. A smaller 350cc version of the H1, reputed to have better handling, appeared in 1972, the same year the 500 finally got the front disc brake it had been crying for since its debut. The H1’s quarter-mile times, however, moved further up into the 13-second column. Kawasaki also gave up on the electronic ignition and replaced it with a conventional breaker points system. At the same time that some young people were worshipping at the altar of speed, others were becoming more and more concerned with the environment, and the environmental contingent was getting the government’s ear.
Street Bikes of the ’60s
Emissions controls and decibel limits loomed on the horizon and Kawasaki, finally satisfied that its 4-stroke 4-cylinder was a worthy opponent for the Honda CB, introduced the very fast yet also very civilized 903cc Z1 in 1972.
2-stroke fans Despite the success of the Z1, a lot of people liked the 500 triple and were upset when it went out of production in 1975, just ahead of legislation that mandated emissions standards that the triple could not meet. Kawasaki Triple clubs were started by enthusiasts worldwide in 1979 when parts sources started to dry up, and they are still going strong. There are Triple clubs in Canada, Australia, the U.K., Italy,
distribution and circuit protection handled by a MotoGadget time, the emphasis was on streetability. M-Unit circuit monitor and electronic breaker. If a short occurs “It has way more power than a stock Guzzi, and it has wonin any circuit, the M-Unit senses the problem, tries to reset the derful low-speed handling,” George says, adding that even circuit, and if the problem persists, leaves the circuit open, trigthough the Megacycle cam is pretty lumpy, “the performance gering a warning light on the dash. is pretty docile. You can be real lazy with it, you can just putt George’s biggest challenge here was retaining the original around, even with the 36mm carburetors. And if you’re on the switchgear while meeting the circuit requirements of the highway and want to pass a couple of motor homes, just grab M-Unit. “Under the tank there’s a whole rack of relays just to a handful … ” accommodate these switches,” George says. The M-Unit also George also points to the bike’s superior ride, due at least incorporates an immobilizer and alarm, taillight modulain part to the Ikon rear shocks he fitted, which he prefers to tor, adjustable fade-in/fade-out for shocks he’s used on past project bikes. the turn signals, and a host of other Handling and braking are also first features. class, George says. “It’s very stable. “The finished product George didn’t have to worry about And you won’t outride the tires before draws stares of admiration you start dragging all manner of stuff. any corrosion issues with a rusty old steel gas tank; he was lucky enough The first thing that hits ground is the everywhere it goes.” to find a new-old-stock V700 chrome centerstand.” tank on eBay. The leg shields were The four-leading-shoe front brake standard equipment on police and also works well. George wanted to military bikes, and were also available as a factory accessory retain a drum brake, even though the Eldorado gained a disc for civilian customers. In George’s case the crash bars, leg during its production run. The drum certainly complements the shields and footpegs with mounting brackets came from Greg period look. “It’ll stop you pretty damn fast. But you really have Field. Pretty much everything else is stock Guzzi — and the to pull on it,” George says. Hella bar-end turn signals complete the period look. The finished project draws stares of admiration everywhere it goes, and it fools even dedicated Guzzisti — at least for a few Riding George’s V700 seconds, until they spot the brakes, alloy rims and modern The Loop Frame Project bike is George’s third custom Guzzi, performance tires. Then the looks of astonishment turn to the two previous machines being café racers (the March/April admiration, and George knows he’s accomplished exactly what 2011 issue of Motorcycle Classics featured one of them). So this he set out to do. MC www.MotorcycleClassics.com
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