Ride the world’s most famous motorcycle
How you can swing a leg over an original £400,000 Brough Superior
Everyone should ride a Brough Superior at least once. With ownership now only for the even more well-heeled than it was before WWII, you shouldn’t pass up the opportunity if it comes your way. And the way to make it happen is by becoming a friend of the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, like reader and Honda CB500S rider Mark Bass. But with (relatively) great power, comes great responsibility. He said: “My initial feeling was one of trepidation and huge responsibility to be given charge of this amazing looking, incredibly valuable bike,” says Mark, who rode the museum’s 1930 SS100 on a classic riding tour for Friends of the Museum and was thrilled by the experience.
The 65-year-old, who recently retired from the pharmaceutical industry, paid £500 for a full day in the saddle.
“The SS100 is a big bike; very long but it is comfortable. The engine is so smooth with loads of torque and power. It’s a totally different way of riding. You really need to use the back brake to have any chance of slowing down and I had to get used to the hand gearshift,” adds Mark.
“The Brough is a long way from my daily ride, a 2002 CB500S, although I do own a couple of classics: a 1957 Matchless G3LS 350cc single and a 1946 AJS Model 18 500cc single.”
Nothing prepared him for the Brough experience. It’s a motorcycle that defined an era.
You needn’t be pious to be awestruck inside a beautiful old church and you needn’t be a vintage motorcycle fanatic to be in awe of the Brough Superior SS100, the undisputed king of the 1920s and 1930s. The so-called Rolls-Royce of motorcycles surpasses all that, its imperious aura reflecting its Superior moniker. Even Rolls-Royce themselves were proud of the
association suggested by that description of George Brough’s Nottingham-built motorcycles. Broughs were certainly exclusive ebven way back when. At a price of £170 in 1930 they cost three times their nearest rival. Just 384 were built between 1924 to 1940. So cherished have they been that a surprising number of those still survive. Indeed the record for a British bike at auction is held by a Brough, not an SS100 but a BS4 that sold for £331,900 last year. Later this month that figure is expected to be topped by a 1928 SS100 when it goes up for auction in Italy with an estimate of between £420,775 and £589,085. Brough’s most famous customer was Colonel TE Lawrence, the celebrated Lawrence of Arabia. He owned half-a-dozen SS100s between 1925 and had his fatal accident on one in 1935.
The SS100 certainly has class with a perfect finish of chrome, nickel and lustrous black stove enamel. Brough built bikes without compromise. In common with most manufacturers of the day, he specified the very best components from outside manufacturers. Customers could further select upgrades to suit their personal tastes and the type of riding they wanted to do. You could even have the bars shaped to your preferred bend. Production was laborious with every bike being assembled and checked for fit before being stripped for finishing.
The SS100 came with different engines at various stages of its production life. Brough used JAP (JA Prestwich of North London) 998cc V-twins and also Matchless.
‘At £170 in 1930 they cost three times their nearest rival’