classic motorcycle history
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Sparton: the chapel-built British racer that scared the factory giants
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For a brief period in the 1970s, one of the most powerful race bikes in the world was being built in a converted chapel in North Wales. Sparton was a collaboration between Barton Engineering and Spondon Engineering. Barton brought the two-stroke engine expertise, Spondon brought the frame-building brilliance, and together they created a machine that…
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Yamaha YR2C: when Yamaha joined the street scrambler trend
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Steve Cooper looks at how Yamaha took its all-new YR1 and jumped aboard the 1960s street scrambler trend. In 1967, Yamaha’s Iwata factory rolled out its most significant machine since the 250cc two-stroke YDS1 of 1959. The all-new Yamaha YR1 350 two-stroke twin was a ground-up design featuring a vertically split crankcase and a clutch…
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Suzuki’s TC200 came here by accident…
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Steve Cooper looks at the street scrambler that came to these shores by accident… So, as we all know, street scramblers were never sold in the UK, right? Well, why would a company do that when we Brits have always had a reputation for being a conservative bunch when it comes to buying motorcycles? Very…
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The cult of LC!
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From the era that style forgot came a machine like no other: Yamaha’s RD350LC. What made this bike (and little brother and subsequent models) so well-loved? Bertie Simmonds explains… At the start of the 1980s, we were under the shadow of The Cold War, Thatcherism had been unleashed upon us, and unemployment was hitting two…
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Japanese Street Scramblers: Kawasaki W series
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Kawasaki’s 1960s foray into four-stroke street scramblers produced just one model, but, as Steve Cooper explains, it was definitely a machine with merits. Kawasaki’s W series parallel twins stem from the Meguro Company that had produced similar 500s from the early 1950s. Towards the end of the decade a power unit very reminiscent of that…
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Swan Motor Manufacturing
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The Swan Motor Manufacturing began life in Frodsham High Street in Cheshire in around 1910 and exhibited its first motorcycle at the Olympia Show in 1911. This was an open-frame machine with, unusually for the time, front and rear suspension. The founder of the company was FH Thornton who lived in a large house opposite…
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