A neat looking plastic model kit: which includes two bikes. One in red, the other chrome. These are the superlative early sixties Rocket Gold Star from BSA.
Each comes on its own molded set. You can see frame, wheels, engine, tank, pipes, bars…
Box back assembly instructions are fairly basic and no decals.
5’6d from your local hobbyist shop.
Some form of two wheeled transport is always wished for at Christmas. If I was a young ‘un back in the early sixties I want one of these. Red Triumph Thunderbird inspired pedal motorbike. I bet many a motorcyclist started out like this! Pillion capabilities too.
This one was sold recently on EBay for $175.
Mototsiki as they would say in St Peterburg. Scot Johnny Stuart (1940-2003) was a preeminent expert on all things pre C 20th Russian: its objects, design and associated historical particulars. However rather than tooling around on a grumpy Ural combination he tore up the London streets near Sotheby’s on Triumphs.
He also penned the tome “Rockers: Kings of the Road”. Allegedly the most shop lifted book in 90’s London… About the leather clad, cafe racing boys of the sixties.
До свидания.
(Da svidaniya)
Sled, desert sled that is. Steve McQueens desert sled. Hot SoCal day and a race across the dusty scrubland is anticipated. Here in Illinois it’ll soon be cold, icy and unrideable; bah, humbug!
Hey!
Fairing Fun: faded mag advert with long coated rider cutting a stylish dash with a streamlined nosepiece. Bubble visor and smart Italian boots. That coat will flutter madly though…
Frivolous-Feasting-Fabulous-Flapping
Dr Who. The classic Timelord from Gallifrey usually utilizes his TARDIS to careen about space and time.
However when on the ground at a particular era the it seems a Triumph Scrambler becomes his wheels of choice.
Supermodel takes on a super model: that is a a gal on a photo shoot with the classic lines of a sixties Bonneville. Here is Gigi Hadid who, at twenty, is a mere slip of a thing in the world of glamour.
I prefer a pair of Doc Martens than pink Manoli Blahniks…up shifting might be a bit graunchy!
(If you want to see the worst music video ever… Here)
McQueens production company which backed films such as Les Mans as well as the documentary On Any Sunday. Clean graphic.
#66 was his Porsche 908/2 number he used on the disused airfield track in Holtville CA.
About a year ago my wife and I were planning our great trip to the west coast. Riding two-up around and beyond the hilly streets of San Fransisco was one of the highlights. Not quite Steve & Jaqueline taking a break from filming Bullitt but close!
Beauty can only get you so far; to get the extra mile you also need some talent. The classic Bonnevilles have both in spades. This is the first antipodean advert for the sixties superbike I’ve seen. A nice different angle of the machine offering an anthropomorphic view. Though somewhat cycloptic…
Early sixties New Jersey scene with a pair of greasers and their aped, bobbed, whitewall tired bikes. The BSA on the left looks like an A10 Rocket Goldstar. Both it and the Norton Atlas appear brand new too. Halcyon days just before the British Invasion lead by John, Paul, George & Ringo.
Three Triples lined up: white, green & black. Like some dollar bill waiting to be spent.
Schoolhouse Rocks
Written by Blind Melon
Three is a magic number
Ya it is, it’s a magic number
Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity
You’ll get three
As a magic number
The past, the present, the future,
Faith, and hope, and charity,
The heart, the brain, the body,
Will give you three,
It’s a magic number
It takes three legs to make a tripod or to make a table stand,
And it takes three wheels to make a vehicle called a tricycle
And every triangle has three corners,
Every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less,
You don’t have to guess
That it’s three
Can’t you see?
It’s a magic number
A man and a woman had a little baby
Yeah they did
And there were three in the family
And that’s a magic number
…riding a ‘Bone’ ville! A chopper from hell with a laughing ghoulish rider. The Egyptian Serif’d font of the Triumph logo is a great touch hinting a a sixties custom shop quality. The semi-psychedelic poster font header reinforces it.
One of the most important pieces of Mid-Century Pop Art is 52 today. Created by Roy Lichtenstein it uses classic comic book imagery of war with crisp enlarged pen and ink line work filled with stipple coloring seen in the pulp illustrations of the day.
The original dynamic visuals are brought to stark graphic life to create one of the most iconic art pieces of the last fifty years (along with Warhols Marilyn…).
It’s a large 11’x 5′ canvas two piece ‘diptych’and hangs at the Tate Modern in London. He saw his pieces as fun industrial art.
A pencil study shows a clean composition with each hand being able to stand on its own yet coming together in stark visual drama.
Alternate versions exist like this hyper real rendering of the F86 Saber coming in for the kill.
Or this Star Wars version of a rebel X-wing pilot destroying an Imperial Tie-Fighter.
Contemporary commentary. Pilotless drones destroying remotely…
Or a commentary on Pop Art itself…
Side Note:
Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier in a Saber in 1953. Here with fellow supersonic pilot Chuck Yeager. Look her up she’s one helluva gal!
This speedy isn’t exactly andale-ing with his Triumph. But when a desert rat turns 50 then middle age catches up with him.
geordiebiker.com 