Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS

MATCHLESS

Matchless by Peter Hartley Osprey Publishing Co. Motorsports 6115 Gravois St. Louis, Mo. 63116 $24.95 plus $1.00 postage

The name Matchless undoubtedly means little to the generation of today but the subhead “once the largest British motorcycle manufacturer” speaks volumes. Matchlesses were quite the vogue here in California during the later '40s and early ’50s as they were big sturdy thumping bikes doing battle with Beezers, Triumphs and the like, easily modified and heavily promoted by West Coast Distributor Cooper Motors who should have been given an OBE by the Queen. Back East Matchboxes were distributed by Indian/ Brockhouse etc. and they apparently couldn’t keep up. At any rate Matchlesses have been rather neglected in print but now the industrious Peter Hartley, second only to Jeff Clew as an illuminator of our reading lives, has taken pen in hand for Osprey Publishing and turned out a really nice big book (91/4 x 93/4) on the subject.

Matchless of course started out in the same way as so many others; penny farthing bicycles in the late 1 800s, struggling attempts at early locomotion with pitiful little flathead mills everywhere but in the rider’s back pocket, then finally getting their act together with Isle of Man wins in 1909 and 1910. The Collier brothers, Harry, Charlie and eventually young Bert made the company go with riding everywhere and doing rapid fire development between races, but actually most of the early successes (lovingly chronicled by Hartley, a Brooklands expert) were done with proprietary engines such as JAP. It wasn’t until 1924 that Matchless had its own make of engine and an ohc sporting Single that followed which was v successful. The Colliers had sense enough to see that the marketplace was what made the business successful and so they always had a heavy bias toward sturdy sidecar machines and reliable transportation runners . . . always four-stroke; their two-stroke experiments were duds . . . and the Super Sports Singles of the thirties not only started to look like Matchlesses but were a clear source of gravy. Somewhere along the line Sunbeam, AJS, Francis Barnett (Fanny B) and James were acquired to make the firm Associated Motor Cycles and the firm, more or less unaffected by the giant slump of 1937-38, breezed ahead. Alas the Colliers en masse died right around the Hitler War and the firm fell into the hands of the sort of executive that has brought down better businesses than AMC. Accountants and PR men are no substitute for motorcyclists.

The book has 11 chapters including one on racing; surprisingly AJS was always regarded as the racing arm of AMC and there is some detail about Ajays but the Matchless efforts are quite well covered too, including some new light on why some bike did or didn’t work. The author obviously prefers the earlier years but does a very workmanlike job on the more modern stuff, having good enough contacts to talk to all the right people. However while he is good on general detail, Hartley falls down on a really comprehensive table of mechanical specs, timing, dating information, all the dooleybits that restorers and specialists like to read and utilize. The book does have notes on a selection of early frame numbers (which nobody over here is likely to need anyway) and some general valve timings but the index is nothing special either. Many models are rather skipped over but probably he was told 200 pages of text and nice big photos is enough, mate.

A really nice production and a good read.

—Henry N. Manney III

TRIUMPH TWINS AND TRIPLES

by Roy Bacon Foreword by CE. Allen Motorsports 6115 Gravois St. Louis, Mo. 63116 $19.95 plus $1.00 postage

A recent trip over “there” has shown me that nobody really cares about old bikes but the English. Books keep pouring out thank God and here is another one by Roy Bacon, published by Osprey, on the Triumphs Twins and Triples. Contrary to popular opinion. Triumph history didn't start with the Tiger 100 or even Bonnie but way back in 1909 with a Bercley-engined example. The idea didn’t catch on, however, until Val Page, Ariel’s designer, and marketing genius Edward Turner commenced fiddling about with component parts of the Square Four. The eventual result, after Turner moved to Triumphs, was the celebrated Speed Twin; looked like the popular twinport Single, a bit lighter, ever so much smoother, and a trifle quicker. So practical was the Speed Twin that even the conservative speed cops ordered thousands. The Twins and their variants lasted 22 years! Anyway, there is a fair amount of history, enough to get the general progression of When and even a little Why (fork angle on one model was set to correspond with attractive artist’s drawings) but mostly the book is pretty technical and goes into all the sort of details and differences that mechanics and restorers want to know.

Chapters are also included on wartime bikes, the Trophy models (not as much or as exhaustive as one would like, especially the ’73 models), the GPs (without horror stories on the spring hub), on Unit Construction, After Meriden, Trident, ISDT, Scooters (boo), the stillborn ohc Twin, Competition, (including some references to American successes), Specials like the Triton and Dresda and winds up with no index but many pages and tables of detailed specs like valve timing and all that good jazz. A nice book but written to length. There are 192 pages and many pix. Enjoy.

—Henry N. Manney III