Table of contents for August 2025 in Real Classic

Farrah Fawcett in a swimsuit on a cool day. Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. Ann Margret in, well, anything, and Bo Derek in braids. I, like perhaps most of the readers of this magazine, am of an age where those images are embedded in my memory bank. If you are a child of the 1950s, 60s or 70s then you perhaps lusted after items which were sadly out of reach, or not easily attained, including two-wheeled motorcycle candy. From about the age of twelve, which was 1967 for me, I spent every dime on motorcycle magazines, every issue that the local magazine shop carried. I read every word, looked at every photo, and for a long time saved every magazine. There are of course motorcycles that stand out in…

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking thatIwould always choose to ride a Norton Commando over a Triumph Bonneville. You would not actually be correct, but I do know that it looks that way, given how many Commandos I’ve borrowed – and indeed owned – down the years. But at the moment, The Shed is home to two Triumph twins, and only one Norton – and the latter’s not a Commando. So there. What actually happened was that when Chris wheeled the Norton out of the way so he could drag out the T140ES I hoped to ride from its luxury lair, the sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up the Norton in a remarkable way. I had my camera in my hands already, so squatted down…

PART THE FIRST I’d not had a road bike for who knows how many years. For at least the last ten years I’ve done nothing but bladder round in dirt circles, and it was years before that when I last had a road bike. Actually on the road. But recently I built a stupidly long-forked chopper thing out of an old SR250 Yamaha, just for fun. And I pottered around on it. It was the most dangerous bike I’ve ever built or ridden by some margin – and there’s been quite a few along the way – what with the long forks and inherent instability, plus pushbike handlebars and a front brake lever connected to the throttle cable instead. Turning left from junctions was we shall call terrifyingly engaging… Anyway,…

I can honestly say that when I decided to rewire the A65 I’d not expected it to be anything like the bonzer performance it’s turned out to be. Don’t get the impression that I’ve not enjoyed the process, because I have, and like all unexpected journeys it’s turned up all manner of odd little discoveries which have provided me with literally weeks of harmless – if not inexpensive – entertainment. Such as the discovery that not all 1971/72 BSA / Triumph airboxes are the same. Tiny differences rear their unlovely heads only when a chap decides to replace a broken bit with another supposedly identical bit. Like the left half of the airbox which replaced the original entirely because I wanted to be able to use the correct – and…

Like many early British motorcycle marques, Sunbeam’s antecedents date back to its origins as a bicycle manufacturer – though that in fact only came about because cycling was the company owner’s hobby! Twice Mayor of Wolverhampton, John Marston was a pillar of civic society in Victorian England, as owner of the largest japanning factory in the Black Country. This was a local speciality comprising a form of Oriental-inspired metal finishing then popular for various household tableware and other metalwork, which was duly replaced by enamelling and, later, electroplating. Marston wasakeen cyclist, so almost inevitably he began building his own bicycles using his firm’s japanning treatment to impart a finished lustre to them. Apparently his wife Ellen saw one of his early bikes leaning against a wall with its polished frame…

BROCHURE COUNTRY Regarded by most Triumph enthusiasts as the epitome of the company’s efforts to produce a competitive machine for the long-distance events of the early 1950s, the TR5 Trophy was, for me, always the one to have. One day. Maybe. That day finally arrived in 2019 when a 1953 TR5 appeared for sale in the Bonhams Stafford auction. I’d checked out a few similar TR5s in recent years and knew that the going rate for these bikes, even in poor condition, was well over £10k. The best available could make more than £15,000, well above my money. I had given up hope of ever owning one. The Bonhams bike looked good enough and was valued at a guide price of £6500 to 8500. I thought that was a‘come and…

Back in 1962 in July I could be found pushing a 1946 BSA C11 250, tele / rigid, on the country roads from my school in Bletchley to my home near Woburn Sands. It was a six mile journey and I thought that if I did not actually ride then bike then it was legal. Today, I know that had I been caught the bike would have required tax, insurance, MoT and me a license. I had paid £6 for the C11, the entire contents of my Post Office savings book. The BSA was to be my very first road legal motorcycle. It was worn out, the dynamo did not work, the chain jumped the rear sprocket unless adjusted dead tight, etc, but I loved it. I eventually passed my…

If anybody had asked where the centre of the British motor manufacture used to be, they would most probably have been told it was in the West Midlands, centred around Coventry. There were of course some exemptions – Morris Motors in Oxford for example – but at one time or another there were thirteen different makes of car and five types of motorcycle all being manufactured in Coventry. So in automotive terms, machines weren’t ‘sent to Coventry’: just the opposite! This is the story on one such machine, a bike which survived the great depression, a world war and the ravages of time. It arrived with me a century after its original date of manufacture. What is it? And how did it come to be here? The motorcycle in question…

The first thing that sprang to mind on seeing this handsome silver, chrome and black machine was, of course, the 1970s TV show, ‘Happy Days’. Very similar to Fonzie’s machine, this was the first sprung hub Triumph to visit my workshop. It was my job to get it up and running once again, which turned out to be a pretty straightforward task, consisting mostly of basic checks, adjustments and servicing. Although the engine oil appeared to be quite clear and new looking, I wanted to make sure the gauze filters in both the crankcase scavenge area and inside the oil tank were intact and clean, so the oil in the tank and crankcase was drained and discarded. To access the gauze filter at the bottom of the crankcase, I had…

I grew up hiking bare mountains in Wales and Scotland and slogging over the open Pennine moors. So once in while I like to get my head up above eastern Canada’s billions of trees. I hatched a great plan. I would ride my enormous 1986 Suzuki Cavalcade land yacht to Quebec and New Brunswick to hike some of the highest spots in each province. But it was not to be. A mere fifty miles into the journey it became clear that the Cavalcade was no longer charging its battery. I turned for home. My buddy Norm, who is always on the lookout for a project, had just finished tidying a 1992 Honda Goldwing Aspencade and needed something new to keep his active mind and fingers busy. A few dollars changed…

We bought a Moto Guzzi V7 Mk3 Special in 2018 and then experienced a major change in circumstances. Looking to the future, I suggested to Val that perhaps we could consider fitting a sidecar to the Guzzi. After the inevitable Wallace & Gromit jokes, we looked at the market for sidecars. My previous experience related to building an outfit was based around an ex-WD 350 Royal Enfield and something that resembled a small boat. After that entertaining exercise I built another one which combined a Norton 600 Dominator and a German Steib chair. That was very useful and a lot of fun during the winter of 1962/63. Half a century later, after research and debate we settled on a Velorex Sport GT from F2 Motorcycles. This ‘unseen’ decision was made…