Dunstall Motorcycles
The story of a British motorcycle tuner turned bike-maker turned after-market parts supplier
Dunstall came to the fore as a bikemaker during the British motorcycle industry’s era of decline. The story began when young Paul Dunstall acquired a Norton Dominator in the late 1950s.
With the knowledge acquired while running a moped and scooter workshop, Dunstall began tinkering with the Dominator’s engine to enhance its performance. In 1957 he started racing motorcycles. The lack of performance parts for the Dominators gave him greater motivation to devise new ways to improve the performance of his motorcycle to make it a race bike.
Dunstall’s racing stint was short and limited to Britain but his love for tuning motorcycles became a passion for life. Dunstall quit racing in 1959 and eventually turned a motorcycle performance parts maker and, by 1961, he had a published catalogue of products.
He soon started assembling complete motorcycles based on his own highperformance versions of stock engines, and not just for Norton. Dunstall was now making performance motorcycles based on most of the British motorcycles. In 1966 he was accused of unfair flouting of the rules of production motorcycle racing by fielding in performance bikes. However, since the British tax authorities recognised Dunstall as a motorcycle manufacturer that year, his bikes were officially homologated for racing in the production class by Britain’s motor sport authority.
Dunstall bikes achieved several highspeed records in the late 1960s thanks to Paul’s tuning prowess. By 1968 Dunstall Motorcycles had expanded into the USA and Sweden. The company was sourcing manufactured parts for its motorcycles from Italy and a few bikes also saw parts from Japanese bikes.
The 1970s decade started on a high note with the move to a larger production facility in London’s industrial zone. The British bike industry’s struggle for survival also saw Dunstall making machines based on Japanese bikes.
By mid-1970s the Dunstall motorcycle range included bikes based on Norton, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki, marking a clear shift towards the Japanese manufacturers.
However, by the beginning of the following decade, like most of the British motorcycle industry, Dunstall had fallen prey to the dominance of the Japanese big four and was forced to sell the business in 1982.
Three decades later, the Dunstall name resurfaced in 2013 as an after-market parts supplier for classic British motorcycles such as BSA, Norton and Triumph. Since then, the reincarnated firm has added a range of products for the new Triumph Bonneville in its effort to establish itself as a modern after-market motorcycle parts supplier.