The Classic MotorCycle

Started in 1903, The Classic MotorCycle has more to offer the true vintage motorcycle enthusiast than any other publication, backed by Europe's largest motorcycle image archive.

Welcome

The Classic MotorCycle

Fine pedigree • One of the famous HRD machines – sold under the banner ‘Produced by a Rider’ – is posed at Brooklands, with a Romanian nobleman on board.

News & Events

Multinational • This combination of Swiss-designed frame and British engine was the result of a series of fortunate meetings and circumstances.

The sprint king • From Vincent employee to road racer to straight-line superstar, the name of George Brown will forever be linked with Vincent motorcycles.

Readers’ Letters • YOUR VOICE & YOUR OPINIONS

Family history • This Vincent Comet came into the Robinson family in 1974 and, although it was away for 25 years, it’s now back in the fold.

Fishing for Vincents • In Western Australia, a former lobster fisherman has amassed an impressive collection of predominantly Vincents, plus a sprinkling of others too, though the main body of the haul is made up of Stevenage-built machines.

From the vault

The Balderston Collection • The preceding six pages are a reprint of a test featuring two machines which are to be offered in Bonhams’ October sale, along with six others, as detailed here.

Ahead of their time • The proposed fully enclosed Series D Vincents were the final evolution of the firm’s products, the culmination of the company’s quest for luxurious Grand Tourer motorcycling.

Full house for the new house • The biggest motorcycle maker to have existed in Kent, Norman motorcycles are celebrated in a special display at Dover Transport Museum.

Rare gem • The surviving numbers of Vincent-built, proprietary-engined HRDs are small, even more so with the early triangulated spring frame, as here.

Good time for good causes • Having raised something like £1.4 million for charity since its comeback, the enthusiastically supported Kop Hill Climb shows no signs of slowing down.

Rear view

Changing saddles • Early TT ace and Isle of Man-born Billy Creyton swapped competing on horses for motorcycles after witnessing the first races held on Mona’s Isle.

Make do and mend • Working within budgetary constraints and adhering to the ‘if it looks right, it is right’ philosophy, the MOV project progresses.

THE CYCLONE RIDES • How Kamen Rider turned Japanese motorcycle into television superheroes

Diary

From the vault

From Germany to Cuba • An unlikely enclave of communist-era East German MZs is still flourishing in the South American sun.

Cool runnings • Arguably, motorcycle engine cooling involves no components… But cylinder barrels and heads are involved in the engine heat-management process and, when liquid-cooled, more components are employed.