Southern Classic Bike Show 2017

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

Southern Classic Bike Show

2017

After getting back from Bristol and at the Museum on Monday and picking up more fliers for later. Tuesday saw me meeting up with Chris for him to borrow my trailer so he could get his Police LE to the Show on the Friday. Nothing happened on the renovation front with the LE engine and gearbox but I did check over my LE in preparation for the ride to Kempton Park. Friday we set up the LE Club stand with Chris, Phil with his Valiant, George and myself getting the banner up and drawings and photos attached to the false wall. 

Chris, me, Steve and George. Phil is taking the picture.

I used safety pins for the wire brackets to hook into and support the banner, Wire coat hangers and masking tape held the drawing in place and just masking tape for the smaller pictures. Everything stayed in place this year. Last year things just kept falling down. Perhaps its because I had new tape that had some sticky stuff on. George arrived on his KSS and me on my LE Special to complete the display on the Saturday morning. Great fun talking to people and handing out fliers for the LMM. Phil had brought several boxes of old Bike magazines and was giving them away. They all disappeared before end of the show. My usual mission is to get oil for the next year and photo some of the more interesting machines on display and around the auto jumble. 

There was a remarkable AJS  M10 500cc ohc single and an even more pristine Zennith Gradua for sale. 

I usually go for Morris oil but this year I was too late in getting out and around because of the heavy showers that sent people scurrying inside to stay dry. No 20/50 anywhere except one stand selling Heritage oils. I was surprised that a gallon was only £14!! Too cheap to be good you might ask. When I had tested it out I’ll report back. Apparently Heritage blend the oil themselves and have a range of oils to suit everyone including fork oil SAE 5,10,15,20,25 and 30!! You can find them on-line www.heritageoils.co.uk

Back in the display hall I went in search of the New Imperial stand to ask a question. New Imperial made a 250cc inclined single and I had a thought that may be one of the engines that had no identification on it in the Museum was a New Imperial. The inclination and shape of the barrel and ports looked a possibility. On the stand Mike was very helpful but he didn’t know of a New Imperial that had a surface cam engine. I showed him some pictures of the engine that I had on my phone. He offered to go in search of information. The picture on the phone were not that good and I said I would get some better ones when I went to the Museum on the Monday. I e-mailed what I had to him on Sunday.

I had recently read about the involvement of Bill Hayward who rode his Baughan in his local motoball or as it was called then motorcycle football. Football played by riding around on a motorcycle and trying to kick a ball as well started off in World War One by despatch riders having a bit of fun. This proved very popular during the twenties and thirties drawing thousands to every match. In the sixties the game had all-but disappeared and is now having a revival, our local club is the Hayes and Southall MCC Motoball Club.

Zoe was on the next stand with her Triumph that has done a few adventures in America with books Bonneville Go or Bust and Southern Escapades that I have yet to read. This time she sold out of books! I commented that she would have enough money to eat today!

Steve, from the LE club helped us out on the stand and Peter, from the Museum was around handing out fliers. He had been on the main gate and had dropped around to the club stand so say he was on his way so I gave him more fliers to hand out. He had distributed them by lunch tome and was on his way home before it started to rain again. I was a great day talking bikes, although we started to pack up at 3pm it was 4pm by the time we had loaded Phil and Chris’s bikes on to trailers. After tidying up our display area it was 4:30pm when George and I and geared up and headed for home on our bikes. We’d had a dry runs this year.

At the Museum on Monday I was on a mission to take some better photos and do some research of my own about this odd engine. I found what I thought was the answer in the British Motorcycle Directory and then in British Motorcycles of the 1930’s. 

The motorcycle was a Dunelt model T that had used a 250cc Sturmey Archer face cam engine. The one in the picture was a single port model but the rest of it looks so similar it has to be. Mike sent me an email late that evening to confirm it was a Dunelt that had used this type of engine.