First ride: CCM Spitfire
CCM’S Spitfire is a hand-built British custom for less than £8000. So what’s the catch?
TWO YEARS AGO, over a bacon buttie in the corner of CCM’S Bolton factory, a handful of staff were chatting about the trend for handbuilt café racers. At the time CCM was only producing the GP450 adventure bike and the conversation soon turned to what the staff would create to appeal to this new audience. Shortly after, designer Chris Ratcliffe made a few sketches. Today this pipedream has become a real-life range of motorcycles, headlined by the Spitfire.
Its hand-welded steel trellis frame and swingarm are made by CCM in Bolton, while the rest of the bike is a collection of components assembled into a final machine by the firm. The 600cc singlecylinder motor comes pre-assembled from Italian firm SWM. Brakes are Brembo, forks are WP, wheels combine Excel rims with Talon hubs, and the fuel tank is by Acerbis.
CCM set out to build a minimalist machine, and it has succeeded. Visually it seems to have nothing but the bare essentials. But it’s the attention to detail that sets the Spitfire aside and makes its £7995 pricetag even more remarkable. The frame and swingarm are lacquered, rather than painted, to ensure their welds are exposed. There’s a Union Jack machined into the heel plate. The wraparound bar grips are leather, with an embossed Spitfire logo. There are tiny LED front indicators, a combined brake-and-indicator cluster built into the tail unit and bar-end mirrors — at least, once the big ugly items required to pass Single Vehicle Approval have been removed. You could happily stand and admire a Spitfire all day, drinking in the exquisite details. And plenty will – CCM has already sold all 150 of these limited-edition original models. But what about riding it?
Just starting the engine feels special, combining keyless ignition with a characterful ‘FIRE’ button on the machined instrument cluster. Out on the open road the first thing that strikes you about the Spitfire is the noise. The twin exhaust pipes are raucously loud and while not inlinefour offensive, they are more than a little fruity when you are riding through quiet Lancashire villages. But other than the sound, at slow speeds the Spitfire is surprisingly civilised. With low pegs and wide bars putting you in an open stance, it’s reasonably comfortable. Even the seat isn’t too painful, feeling pleasantly sculpted to a bum’s curves. And the SWM motor is remarkably compliant too.
Effectively, it’s a Husqvarna unit developed with BMW money – when BMW sold Husqvarna to KTM in 2013, Chineseowned SWM bought Husky’s Italian factory and, with it, BMW’S investment in
infrastructure and development. The 600cc single is eager to rev, with a slick gearbox and vibrations that are characterful rather than teeth-rattling. At reasonable speeds it works well and the Spitfire functions as a coherent package, rather than feeling like a collection of parts in an uneasy marriage. It’s fun rolling through towns and villages and feels special. But it’s not to be rushed…
Increase to an enthusiastic pace and the limitations of its more design-led components start to show. At speed, the 19-inch wheels, with their Maxxis flat-track tyres, create a lot of gyroscopic force, making the lightweight Spitfire a bit sluggish to turn and introducing a wobble at motorway pace. The two-piston Brembo front brake feels lacking too. And while fine at lower speeds, when you started to ask more of the motor our test bike, it suffered when shifting down multiple gears quickly, causing the engine to stall.
The only solution is to slow down to the Spitfire’s natural pace. It is, after all, primarily a beautiful bike, with all the visual hallmarks of a hand-built special but without the usual total ludicrous price. And unlike so many of those bikes, it’s also one that can be ridden on a day-to-day basis — just not with reckless enthusiasm.