Green issues
The juxtaposition of the articles on the green Velocette MAC and the BSA Bantam in the February 2021 edition of The Classic MotorCycle brought to mind my first bike.
You noted that green was not a popular choice of colour for motorcycles and couldn’t call to mind another example, apart from the D1 Bantam. The first motorcycle I rode, briefly, at Scouts, before inexperience and a jamming throttle cable combined to send me into the chain link fence was a ‘mist green’ Bantam.
The first bike I owned though, was a 1955 Ariel LH
Colt in a green, very similar to the Velocette. Many postwar Francis-Barnetts were also green. This was a standard colour for early Colts but Ariel also offered it in red and black and this might have been the more common choice. I understand that green was often regarded as an ‘unlucky’ colour and that the extreme darkness of British Racing
Green arose when drivers objected to the idea of driving in the more conventional green originally proposed.
The Colt seems to be generally derided in the motorcycle press – not a ‘proper’ Ariel and seen as a lesser version of the BSA C11G. Having ‘only’ plunger suspension when swinging arm rear ends were becoming the norm meant that its handling was marked down by many as inferior and its relatively high price ticket did it no favours either.
However, bought when it was 10 years old on my paperboy’s wages of 50p per week, mine got me on the road, never let me down, and as for handling
– I chickened out long before reaching the limits of the bike.
So, what about the Bantam? Years later my daily transport was a 1971 B175. With an Amal Concentric carburettor and an ignition system that was nigh-on impossible to get and keep set up. It was a pain to start and was forever feeling as though it was about to seize up – when it hadn’t actually seized. It didn’t take long to cool down and could nearly always be ridden home but... the Colt always got me home and that was a big difference in riding pleasure.
The Colt was more economical, more comfortable and looked more like a proper bike. There is one point where the two bikes were alarmingly similar, though. The front brake. Neither was of much use at all. George Mitchell, via email.