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BSA B50 BACKGROUND BSA built its business and its reputation on big singles. The 350cc and 500cc Gold Star dominated the off-road market from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. By this time of course, the state of the art had moved forward considerably, and the heavy Gold Star couldn’t compete with lighter 2-strokes …
THE VELOCETTE LE – A BEST-SELLER? Immediately following World War 2, there was a pressing need in the UK for simple, inexpensive, utilitarian personal transport to get to-and-from work. Velocette attempted to tap into this market with their radical new “LE” in 1948. LE stands for “Little Engine”, and it certainly was. The 149cc water-cooled, …
1947 BSA C10 BACKGROUND With the exception of their exciting new vertical twin, the A7, BSA’s postwar lineup was pretty pedestrian. They were feeding the biggest market in England at the time: low-cost commuter bikes. While England emerged from World War II as one of the victors, they were shattered economically. So millions of returning …
TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN CHANGES THE WORLD! From their earliest inception through the 1930s, most classic British motorcycles were single-cylinder designs with a few V-twins thrown in for sidecar duty. But the problem with both these configurations is vibration and a lot of it. As bikes grew in displacement and power output and the engine speed …
NORTON NAVIGATOR BACKGROUND Norton has always been known for big powerful bikes like the Manx and the Commando. But they also had a very ambitious line of smaller bikes that they originally built to respond to a change in British motoring law that was announced in 1958. Starting in 1960, first-time British motorcycle riders would …
TANGLED ROOTS The BSA Rocket 3 is something of an anomaly in the history of BSA Motorcycles. Designed by Triumph, (BSA owned Triumph) in their Meriden Plant as the Triumph T150 Trident 750 triple, , and morphed into the BSA A65 Rocket 3, both were produced in BSA’s Small Heath factory. ABOVE: The 1969 BSA …
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