Cw 25 Years Ago July, 1964
CW 25 YEARS AGO July, 1964
ROUNDUP
WHEN I LEAF THROUGH A 25-year-old magazine, it’s the advertisements that get most of my attention. Cycle World's July, 1964, edition is no exception.
The first ad is for Velocette, the British company that made the classically styled, single-cylinder Venom, which the copy says could be had, with fairing and fish-tail muffler, for the sum of $1095. My friends in the restoration business tell me that a good example goes for $5000 today.
Next, there’s a two-page ad for Yamaha’s two-stroke, 250cc YDS-3, a $630 bike that was heralded as having “the engineering breakthrough of the year,” which turned out to be an oil-injection system.
BMW scored points with an ad for its reliable, conservatively styled bikes, running the clever blurb, “What’s black and white and rode all over.” Royal Enfield’s copy writers were a less-inventive lot, choosing to highlight that their 750cc Interceptor had “2 carbs—2 float bowls” and was “built as a 750 from the bottom up,” which perhaps explains why BMW is still with us while Enfield has gone to that great oil puddle in the sky.
The most-telling ad, though, touts the virtues of Honda’s 305cc Super Hawk and gives some insights into why the Japanese would go on to world dominance of the marketplace. “Engine and transmission of unit construction for lower weight and oil tightness” was one of its features, as was “electric startingstandard.’’Revolutionary in 1964, there aren’t too many bikes around today whose predecessors didn’t display those two traits .—David Edwards
