Cream of the crop
Classic Bike Shows Events Manager Nick Mowbray took a look at some of the classic machines entered into this year’s International Classic Bike Show sponsored by Carole Nash. Here are Nick’s picks, a handful of incredible bikes you need to see in the flesh.
First up, and a first for Stafford, is AMB 001 or, to give it it’s full name, the Aston Martin Brough; the result of a collaboration between Aston Martin and Brough Superior. Strictly limited to just 100 motorcycles, the track-only AMB 001 represents the union of iconic Aston Martin design and state-of-the-art Brough Superior engineering to create a piece of dynamic art for the motorbike connoisseur. This bike is number 35 off the production line and I bet you’ve never seen one in the flesh. Pick number two has to be factory special Vincent Black Shadow race bike from 1951. Built for Frank Turner, it was a bike destined to campaign in the various TT races against the likes of Duke, Doran, McCandless and Wood. Black Shadows were built with the same labour-intensive hand-fitting of bearings and major engine parts that Vincent had used prior to the war, with an air-cooled, four-stoke, 50-degree V-twin unit, a displacement of 998cc and a top speed in excess of 130mph. Quite incredible for 72 years ago. As if one Brough isn’t enough, along comes another. The roadgoing Brough Superior SS80 has been fully restored to original specification. It’s a 1936 rigid frame example which was despatched from the Nottingham factory at Haydn Road early in that year after the SS80 was relaunched a year prior. The new 982cc, side-valve, V-twin engine from Associated Motor Cycles differed from the earlier Matchless engines, featuring a ‘knife-and-fork’ big-end bearing arrangement, and it was this engine that Brough Superior favoured until production was curtailed by hostilities in 1939. This example is simply stunning. Bob Mayow’s 1938 BSA B25 is number four in our list. This 350cc machine was BSA factory supported and ridden by Welsh Trials Champion Percy Sivell in the 1939 International Six-Day Trials at Llandidrod Wells. It went on to achieve more success on the sands at Pendine. Sivell’s original bike has been sympathetically restored to ‘oily rag’ condition by John Harding, paying homage to that 1939 trial and keeping it utterly original. It has a Reynolds 531 lightweight frame. Yes, the same tubing you had on your pushbike as a kid, and has been ridden in the Beamish Trophy Trial. More importantly and to our delight, it’s still ‘campaigned’ locally offroad and on ‘green lanes’ by its current owner. It’s not often a motorcycle from the ‘other side of the pond’ features at Stafford, but Paul Kanner’s 1952 Harley Davidson isn’t one to miss. Kenner can’t lay claim to the build of this stunner as it was originally built by Keith Howship in 2009 and actually won Best in Show at Stafford in 2010 before going into storage. Kenner bought the bike at auction in 2022 with only 12 miles on the clock, recommissioned it and, after some modifications to make it a reliable and safe bike on the road, the bike has now covered over 1500 miles. I think Wyatt would approve! Easy, man…. Last but certainly not least is Roy Fox’s 1957 Norvin Norton/ Vincent café racer. A 998cc Vincent motor in a Norton featherbed wideline frame, this motorcycle was recommissioned in 2023. Although designed with a single-cylinder engine in mind, the generously-proportioned Featherbed frame in time would prove capable of accommodating a wide variety of different power units – twins, triples, fours and v-twins, all could be made to fit with a little ingenuity and there have been several constructed with the Vincent v-twin engine. There isn’t a part on this bike that’s not seen Roy Fox’s polishing cloth!