Longford Motorama, Tasmania
The Longford Motorama was a huge success over the two days of the March long weekend with perfect weather. Day One was spent with cars and bikes of the era doing laps around the Symmons Plains circuit to the delight of the public who were able to buy laps in the passenger seat of many of the cars.
Sunday’s static display on the Village Green in the centre of Longford saw around double the crowd of last year. The displays again centred on cars and bikes of the Longford race eras in not only race examples but everyday vehicles of the time. The long bike tent was full all day with people wanting to view the many bikes on display.
Brad Astill’s 1949 Triumph 700, originally raced by NSW rider Brian Clarkson, was greatly admired in the Sunday display sitting alongside three Royal Enfields from Mike Lemon. They included a 1934 LF 500 (4 Valve) and a 1949 350 Bullet. Brad and Nigel’s next stop was to be the National Historic Championships is South Australia. The work in restoring Caroline Jamieson’s 1955 Velocette MSS500 has just been completed and she used her Tasmanian Motorcycle Transport truck to pick it for the display. After Caroline’s unsuccessful first lessons on how to start it were followed with others failing, a tall local Police Officer was able to start the fire to a big cheer from the large crowd. Not only the race bikes of the era were on display, but road bikes as well. The book on the history of the Tasmanian Motor Cycle Club called “100 Clicks” was a good selling item on the day.