Martin Squires Automotive Illustration: Classic Motorcycle Show, Birmingham NEC

"Todd" BSA Bantam

(ink sketch)

As regular reader may know I'm always partial to a BSA Bantam, so I always look at the BSA Bantam Club stand. This year the Bantam Racing section had a great selection of racers on display. I was thrilled to find THE "Todd" Bantam on display a real piece of Bantam racing history. George Todd well known for his tuning especially the famed Todd Head raced and developed this Bantam from 1948 to 1960. After this Fred Launchbury took over as rider in 1960. Fred took the Bantam Championship in 1965, 67and 1968, and won many national races and appeared on the leaderboard in the TT amongst the works teams. In 1970 George moved to Germany where he still lives. Fred sold the bike to young novice Terry Brown who in late 1977 won 3 championships the Bantam Club, Newmarket Club, and National Formula Championship riding in approx. 80 races that year with something like 60 wins. In the early 1980s the bike was sold to Laurie Starke who used it in Bantam Club and the newly formed Classic Club races. The current owner purchased the bike around 18 months ago. Since then the Bantam has been been put back to roughly as it was in 1965. It will be used in Bantam and Historic Races and Parades. It's great to see that racing bikes with such history are still to be used as intended.

1956 NSU Prima D

(ink sketch)

I love the styling on the German scooters of the 50's there is something slightly space aged about them whilst being slightly reserved at the same time. This NSU Prima D was first registered in the UK in 1956 in Bristol. Only recently unearthed this example is perfectly untouched and apparently has been out of use from 1964. The scooter has only had a mechanical 'spruce-up' by Ireland's Motorcycles of Barnstaple, and rightly so as that's al a piece of history like this needs. It's thought fewer than 20 are running in the UK at this time. Now on the road again in North Devon the owner wrote a history of NSU scooters for Motorcycle Enthusiast magazine in 1985, and it has taken him until now to own his own. I'm pretty sure he enjoys it just as much, if not more, than I did sketching it.

1929 New Hudson Model 88 Plus Power

(ink sketch)

Another fine example of just getting a bike running and leaving the condition to do the speaking was this New Hudson. I had seen this previously at Kop Hill and took this opportunity to get it into the sketchbook. Herbert Le Vack broke the 100mph record on a New Hudson in 1927, this model was commonly known as the "Le Vack Replica". I was quite taken with the winged knee pads, apparently these were not standard and were put on by the current owner, it would have had smaller pads originally. They certainly look the part, especially with the dropped bars and Brooklands style silencers.

1922 Zenith-Bradshaw 3.5hp ohv

(ink sketch)

Seen on The British Motorcycle Charitable Trust stand this fantastic Zenith caught my eye as I wondered what the multitude of chains did. It turned out that this was an example of the famed Gradua Gear System, similar to the Rudge Multi the Gradua system allows for infinite gears between the set high and low gearing. This is achieved by having a variable engine pulley which changes its diameter when the handle on top of the tank is turned. At the same time as the pulley diameter is changed the rear wheel is moved in order to maintain the correct tension on the belt that drives the rear wheel. This system was introduced in 1907 and was used successfully on the Brooklands Test hill where a Zenith machine took the record for the hill. Soon after this the Gradua system was banned in competition as people said it was an unfair advantage. Zenith incorporated "Barred" into their badge as a result. The engine used in this Zenith is also quite unusual, as the horizontally opposed barrels are extended into the crank case with only the heads exposed. This results in a reduction in engine noise with near silent running. This machine like many other unusual machines was restored at Sammy Millers Museum workshop.