Mighty Maico

I read in OBA 87 the story of the Maico Taifun. In late 1955-early 1956 my best mate and I were in Milledge Bros in Elizabeth Street Melbourne when they had brought in two Taifuns. My mate had bought a new Adler from them not long before this. The Adler cost £279/10-, and another £20 for the

Sports model, one was 16 hp and the other 18 hp. This was more than a BSA or Triumph, but the quality was fantastic. Stove enamel paintwork, top chrome and alloy, great dual seat, comfortable to ride and great brakes. Back to the Taifun, there was one on the showroom floor, and one was out on a test ride. When the bloke came back from the test ride he was over the moon. He couldn’t believe how good it was. Both bikes were a light purple-lilac colour, light iridescent, not silver like the bike in your article. The colour really set off the gold ‘M’ on the tank.

In the article, it was said that because of the close piston-cylinder clearance, the run-in period advised was 4,000 km. In my mate’s owner’s handbook, the advised method was to take the bike flat in second gear until it started to nip up. Take it home, barrels off, and file the high spots off. Do this again until there was no nipping up, then it was run in! It worked, because the bike did 44,000 miles before my mate pulled it down out of curiosity to check it out. It had only had spark plugs in all that time, no parts needed. The big ends had twin-row caged rollers, the needles were about 4mm by 3mm. In the big end eyes, there were just two grey tracks where the needles had run. I doubt if there was even half a thou wear and that was running on the two stroke oils available in those days. On today’s oils, I think it would have done another 40,000 miles easily.

Allan Gillespie Werribee South, Vic.