Features

Motorcyclists in 1999 have grown used to the idea that Honda’s CBR600 has been consistently the best selling machine of its class. It’s almost a permanent fixture at the top of the sports bike chart. But it wasn’t always like that…

The ‘Ton for an hour’ Bill Lacey Grindlay-Peerless comes back to life. But there’s always one know-it-all sourpuss hanging around, don’t you find? Like the one at the Brooklands Reunion Day gathering who, after studying Gerry Belton’s restored 500cc flyer, just had to say his piece…

Eminent lady motorcyclist Mrs M C Cooke poses with a twin-cylinder Douglas; riding it was her first try of a two-pot machine, most of her experience of riding in the half dozen years she’d been a regular participant having been undertaken on a specially modified, single-speed Triumph…

Four phase check for economy and performance on Amal’s popular Monobloc motorcycle carburettor by Don Bridgewood…

Honda’s CB400F four of 1978 was a ground-breaking machine, a little bike with a big heart that took to the race track with glee…

We all know Harley-Davidsons, right? Made in Milwaukee, thundering great V-twin engines, pistons the size of dustbins, low-revving, weigh about the same as a Cadillac? Not necessarily…

Bob Currie explains the background to the one-and-only 998cc Watsonian-JAP, now added to the National Motorcycle Museum collection. But Watsonian made sidecars, didn’t they?

The cafe racer from Redditch. We test Royal Enfield’s Continental GT

Lawrence Watts shunned publicity but the classic motorcycle and automotive worlds were a better place for his stunning three-dimensional drawings which showed hidden mechanical detail through artwork cutaways…

Ace draughtsman he might have been, but Lawrie didn’t just sit in front of a drawing board, he was often out chasing a story. And, as David Dixon recalls, one of his happiest hunting grounds was the Isle of Man…