25 Years Ago May, 1973
25 YEARS AGO MAY, 1973
Resting on a pale-blue background, Triumph's latest and greatest Bonneville debuted as this month's coverbike. Proclaimed the best Bonneville yet, the T140V was praised for its incremental updates. Announced editors, “Triumph should have built the 750 Bonnie five years ago.” Indeed, the design was such a good one that its image can be seen in today’s Thunderbird Triple.
• On the off-road front, CW previewed Hodaka’s absurdly named Combat Wombat. Basically a stock Wombat chassis without lights and turnsignals, the Combat version was powered by an engine built for horsepower freaks. The 125cc two-stroke Single was mightily tweaked, with a ported cylinder, larger Mikuni carb and beefed-up clutch. We said: “More Hodakability for the competitionoriented buyer.”
• And now for something completely different: Cycle World looks at stamp collecting. That’s right, four color pages were dedicated to the obscure art of acquiring motorcycle postage stamps. Motocrossers from Germany, sidehacks from Yugoslavia and hillclimbers from Russia were all commemorated in lickable form. And then there was the one bearing the likeness of famed GP racer Giacomo Agostini. Oddly enough, it wasn’t from Italy, but from Yemen, which the author explained was “one of the countries-or tribes might be a better word-that make up the Mutawakelite Kingdom.” And we thought stamp collecting was dull...
-Wendy F. Black
