I’ve had a great week dominated by classic motorcycles!
First we had the Webb’s motorcycle auction and I visited their showrooms to check out a 1937 Triumph 5H and also a Brough Superior SS80. This coincided with a tropical cyclone, where the news was telling everyone to stay home and only go out for essential travel. Of course viewing motorcycles is ‘essential travel’ so I went and checked them out. I knew I couldn’t afford the Brough but ended up missing out on the Triumph also, perhaps this was fate?
I do like to check my personal email when I’m working and one morning I opened it to see an email from the motorcycle group of the Vintage Car Club that I belong to. It was headed “Hugh’s triumph” and was about a 1947 Triumph Speed Twin that had belonged to Hugh Anderson for 60 odd years and it was now up for sale. Hugh is a New Zealand motorcycle racer with a fantastic history, in the sixties he was a 2 time world champion and twice won Isle of Man TT races as well as being a professional rider and incredible mechanic for quite some years.
The bike in the accompanying photos looked great with some pic’s capturing the panniers on the rear frame with ‘Hugh and Janny Anderson’ painted on the side, wow, there’s history and provenance right there. I emailed the seller and after 30 minutes I got a phone call. I arranged to meet him at his ‘shed’ after work. After arriving I soon learnt the word ‘shed’ could not really be applied to Mikes building, to call it a ‘shed’ would be a bit like calling Scarlett Johansson ‘a bit of a looker’, it was just spectacular – as is the lady herself. Indians anyone – how about 3 pre-1920’s, an Army Indian and a board track racer. Anyone like Ducati’s? How about 5 seventies bikes and a few Ducati race bikes. Vintage or veteran motorcycles? How about a multitude of makes and models, ‘The Joyce’, a Hobart, FN four, New Hudson, Rudge 4-4 as well as the more common makes such as BSA, Norton and Douglas. All in either impeccable order or huge amounts of patina – whatever takes your fancy.
The Triumph looked good, it had plenty of patina without looking shabby, Mike turned the fuel on, tickled the carb, kicked it once and it immediately fired into life and settled into a smooth idle. It was dark outside so I couldn’t ride it, so I checked I could select the gears, the brakes kind of did something and the oil leaks weren’t over the top. He asked how much I was prepared to pay, I mentioned a figure, he mentioned another and I said I’d think about it. The next morning he phoned me with a lower figure and I thought it was a good deal. After procrastination for a day I rang him back and asked if it was still for sale, he said he’d had an offer but the guy had to check with his wife – something I’d neglected to do and had no intention of doing. I asked a few questions and then told him I’d take it, he said if I ever decided to sell it, he wanted first option to buy – no problem.
So then I had to inform my good wife Jen, hmm, this could take some thought, I couldn’t say that I’d just bought it by accident, as I’d used that excuse on my last bike. It was around drinks time so it went something like this:
- Me: ‘Do you want to have a drink to celebrate’
- Jen: ‘Celebrate what’?
- Me: ‘Our new investment’
- Jen: ‘What new investment?’, after a few seconds pause she said ‘You’ve brought that bike haven’t you?’
- Me: ‘Ah yes, Larry said it was a really good buy’ – Larry being my brother-in-law and not particularly knowledgeable about bikes, but a handy bloke to have around
- Jen: Big sigh ‘Larry is a bad influence on you’
You may like to try this on your next bike purchase and for some extra tips – it helps if you’re cooking a nice dinner and having someone to deflect some of the blame is helpful – good luck.
I’ll provide a full report on this bike, once I’ve done some miles.
Journey's with British Motorcycles 