Old Bike Australasia

Old Bike magazine is a must for those who ride as well as the dedicated enthusiast and rebuilder, covering everything from Vintage to early 1980s bikes - marvel at the restoration of machines that could still sit proudly on the showroom floor. Each issue brings you the latest news and results from recent events, race reports and Rally Roundup, along with new and old bike news and reviews, readers letters, Club Directory, What’s On and much, much more.

EDITOR’S LETTER

Old Bike AUSTRALASIA • NUMBER 83

BLOW YOUR OWN • LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

CLASSIC COB • OUT IN THE SHED

BUZZ BOX OLD BIKE NEWS

Under the Chequered Flag

Wes Brown • A mountain of a man

The fellow in yellow • It may be 60 years since Alec Corner left his native London, but the cockney accent remains – it could be ‘Arfur Daley talking. And while he had never raced a motorcycle before migrating to Melbourne in 1959, he became Australia’s most successful sidecar racer in a very short space of time, thanks to a chance meeting with veteran racer Frank Sinclair.

Frank Sinclair Rider, sponsor, philanthropist • A butcher by trade, Frank Sinclair was a legend in Victorian motorcycling (as well as a dab hand at car rallying) and was a Life Member of the Harley Club of Victoria – a club he joined in 1930.

Seventy years 897 RACES AGO • Against all odds, the British AJS factory won the very first 500cc World Championship. It was all downhill from there…

A SIGN OF AFFLUENCE • According to the late Gianni Minisini, who brought this 1946 Moto Guzzi 500 GTV to Australia from his home town of Udine in Italy, “In Italy, the people who owned these bikes were mainly wealthy businessmen trading in livestock.”

The other PAN • Honda’s transverse V4 has gained a cult following since its inception thirty years ago. As well as countless private owners, it was the choice of law enforcement agencies, breakdown services and others for many years…

The long and short of it Port Pirie Speedway/Longtrack SA • Long Track, Big Track, Mile, Half Mile – it may just be straights and left turns, but every circuit, no matter how apparently similar, has its own character and produces its own blend of racing. For many years, Port Pirie was the scene of epic racing on two and three wheels.

One for the road • Once a common sight on race tracks, the Matchless G50 with its distinctive red fuel tank all but disappeared until the advent of classic racing. But here’s one far away from its natural habitat…

AS ITALIAN AS HOT DOGS OR AS AMERICAN AS MACARONI • Aermacchi Harley-Davidson. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? And somehow, it never quite came off. To the purists, the motorcycles thus named were still the same flat singles that had been made in the Italian town of Varese, near the Swiss border since 1955, and to the Americans, anything other than a big fat v-twin was simply a travesty.

COAST TO COAST • The Nullarbor Plain was the final obstacle for our pioneer intercity record breakers.

Born-again sword fighter • Suzuki’s secret weapon for the 1981 Castrol Six Hour Race missed the boat, literally, when a tugboat strike left the initial shipment stranded off Sydney heads. But one was flown in for display at the race and it proved a show-stopper, the German-styled all-silver, wire-spoked 1100 smashing the Japanese stereotype for big bikes in a single blow.

Out’n’about • Welcome to Old Bike Australasia Out’n’about – a forum of people, places, history and happenings.

A CBX rescue • Al Gill, former Australian dirt track rider and now resident in Edmonton, Canada, usually busies himself with the manufacture of some exquisite motorcycle sculptures that have been featured in these pages. Recently he undertook something larger, the resurrection of...