Vintage

Old bikes are great to look at and, sometimes, great to ride. New bikes are so much more reliable and easier to live with. But how about if you managed to combine the best of old with the best of new? Wouldn’t that be something?

Following news of the millionth Hinckley-built Triumph motorcycle, the very first Triumph motorcycle from 1901 has been discovered and fully restored.

You have to love pioneer motorcycling engineers for the crazy ideas they sometimes came up with. Before the motorcycle took the form it has today, many blind alleys were headed down with a persistence that was remarkable. One of the most bizarre was the Megola, with a radial five-cylinder engine mounted to the hub of the front wheel. It can’t have been as mad as we think as 2,000 were sold in the 1920s.

Vintage and historic racing is massively popular and nowhere more so than at the Goodwood Revival in the UK. The bike races attract some of the top names in racing - John McGuinness, Dani Pedrosa, Steve Parrish and Barry Sheene (when he was alive), to name but a few. Most of the bikes are Manx Nortons or Matchless G50s but it was an 89-year-old BMW R5SS, piloted by ex-World Superbike champion Troy Corser, that stole the show in the 2018 Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy race, with an incredible display of riding on a bike with no suspension and a hand gear change.

Often called the most famous motorcycle in the world, no-one really knows where the original Captain America, from the Easy Rider movie, is. But that doesn’t matter when you can have one built for yourself and re-create the American Dream.

No doubt about it, the motorcycle industry has a rich and interesting history. Sometimes we come across an item of importance for motorcycling history that isn’t actually a motorcycle as we think of it by today’s definition. Our subject is just such a machine: the Whizzer Pacemaker.

Janus Motorcycles offers three models in their 250-series line that all come with healthy doses of what is certainly quintessential “vintage” styling. You hear it all the time; “they just don’t build them like they used to.” Usually, that’s a good thing since we’re safer and more comfortable on the road than ever before, but I’d argue that motoring has all but lost one very important quality: charm. That’s right, I said it, and I can back it up.

With the craze of the vintage designs and brands taking mainstage in the industry currently, another forgotten Indian brand, Yezdi, is having a grand comeback in the most modern fashion and will join the likes of Ariel, Levis, Brough, Hesketh, Matchless, and Norton. Thanks to the Indian auto major Mahindra and Mahindra’s subsidiary, Classic Legends Pvt Ltd. (CLPL) that purchased the iconic British biker BSA Motorcycles rights to the JAWA brand (whose sister company is the Yezdi).

While we know that it would take at the least a couple of years to see their first iterations of what is touted as ‘The grand revival’, Mahindra has gone ahead and launched the official Yezdi.com website. It pays homage to those twin exhaust pipes of the Yezdis of yore and will take us through the brand’s rich history and magnificent heritage of the classic motorcycles.

Traffic in eastern countries is becoming a tourist highlight of sorts with people photographing it to share their experiences back home. Traffic causing gridlocks all across the towns and major cities have become a common sight, but the governments are worried about the bigger problem here. With so many vehicles plying, the environment is taking the hit with depleting air quality, especially with older vehicles emitting much more than current ones.

Hence, one of the eastern countries, Singapore, is taking a major step towards restricting these old motorcycles creating environmental and congestion woes before they could go out of gear. The National Environment Agency (NEA) has announced cash incentives of up to S$3,500 (USD$2650) to owners who will de-register their pre-2003 registered motorcycles over the next five years.

Joining the likes of BSA, Ariel, Levis, Brough, Hesketh, Matchless, and Norton, there is another European vintage name coming back from the abyss and relive the glory days of the 20th century. Say hello to Jawa Motorcycles, with love from Prague, Czechoslovakia. (err… or India??)

While we know that it would take at the least a couple of years to see their first iterations of what is touted as ‘The grand revival’, JAWA has gone ahead and launched their brand-new edition of its iconic 350 motorcycles and a 660 Vintage. This time, carrying a four-stroke engine with single overhead camshaft to be able to comply with the Euro - IV emission norms.

That is exactly what happened to Spanish custom builders Café Racer Dreams (CRD) last week. Located in Paracuellos de Jarama, Madrid, Spain, CRD is one of the reputed BMW custom specialists located in the area who have been turning out some stunningly beautiful creations over the last couple of years.

Unfortunately, some miscreants, supposedly qualified, broke open their lock and made away with 8 newly customized bikes that were ready for dispatch to their owners inside and outside of Spain. In addition to these stolen CRD, the thieves stole a classic Porsche 356 even.

Based out of Iowa, custom motorcycle builder Greg Hageman started working on Yamaha motorcycles at the start of this century. His very first one was an XS650 build that basically kicked off his love of vintage Yamahas’. And as they say, the rest is history.

This scent was picked up by the folks at Yamaha Yard Build, guys who ask "talented customizers to provide inspirational ideas on how to transform modern Yamaha models into ’Yard Build’ specials."

Google launched a new initiative for America called the “Grow with Google”, that will allow today’s workforce to access the best of Google’s training and tools to help them grow their skills, careers, and business.

To show the world how it’s done, the Californian tech giant roped in Janus Motorcycles from Goshen, Indiana, a small motorcycle builder that makes around 90 machines a year. Together, they produced a YouTube video that goes on to showcase how the founders collaborated and made use of the internet’s tools to market their machines.

The National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire, England, received a donation worthy of the awe of any biker among us. After careful restoration, a 1953 BSA A10 "Golden Flash" was donated by its owner to the National Motor Museum to be a part of "The Motorcycle Story" exhibition. The exhibition looks at the history of motorcycling, examining and celebrating people’s quest for individuality, freedom and the desire to go fast. It is the perfect venue to showcase the A10 and its post-war design that helped to shape the motorcycle industry in the mid-20th century.

Continue reading for more on the BSA A10 "Golden Flash."

Triumph has been the oldest British motorcycle manufacturer that has a rich 115 years of heritage. Expressing this to the world, the Hinckley firm has built a brand new Factory Visitor Center for £4million ($5.3 million) spanning across eight distinctly-themed areas that combine to create a full Triumph experience.

Showcasing the brand’s achievements in design, engineering, racing and popular culture, the visitor center will allow fans to get behind the scene through both historic and modern era of motorcycles and legends riding them.

“Evil” is a complex thing. Sometimes evil is justified, and this is one of those times where Evil is all you want to be riding on a personified saga on a veil.

Indian Motorcycles is lifting itself to the pinnacle for 2018 and for its second instalment (the first being the Roadmaster Elite), the Polaris owned manufacturer has launched the 2018 Indian Springfield Dark Horse. It a solo saddle amalgamation of the mechanicals and stature of an Indian Springfield and the blacked out theme carried from the Indian Chief Darkhorse. This will be the third model in the American line-up to get the Dark Horse treatment.

It gets updated with subtle yet dark cosmetic changes to give it a stealth outlook while blacking out just about everything apart from the exhaust. It carried around the same panache and poise of the epoch Springfield, a motorcycle that leaves no question of having a prominent place in the lineup of this historic brand that knows retro indulgence.

Sit up and pay attention, folks. We have some news from the Catawiki auction site. It seems that the world’s oldest Vespa is up for grabs. Owner Ruote-Da-Sogno has its 1946 “Serie 0” Vespa on the block. Not only is this the oldest, working-condition Vespa in the world, but it comes from a 60-unit, pre-production run so it started out as a rare bird to begin with. The age just makes it even more valuable as evidenced by the almost $175,000 bidding price at the time of this writing. Estimates by the auctioneer place the anticipated sale price at something between $268,000 and $348,000, and we still have a few days left — expect those bids to creep up significantly before this is done. This here is the real deal folks. Hand-beaten body panels work with the hand-soldered frame for an authenticity and craftsmanship you just can’t find nowadays. This awesome opportunity to own a rare, old Vespa is timely as it corresponds with Piaggio’s 130th anniversary.

Continue reading for more from Piaggio on its 130th anniversary.