Who remembers the 1970 CAR magazine cover featuring the BSA Rocket 3, which they pitched against a Lotus?
I've had the rather stupid idea that I might like to save up for one.
Or perhaps I should be (slightly) more sensible and set my sights on the Z900.
Your thoughts, please?
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If your bag is having something which spends most of its time in your garage with its under-engineered internals spread over the bench while your phone bill swells in proportion to your endless hunt for parts, then go for the BSA. You will be helping to celebrate the nadir of the British motorcycle industry of the era before its life was mercifully extinguished.
If you want something 1970 with a bit of grunt that gets there and back under its own power I suggest a CB750.
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Awful. No other word for it. This era of Britih bikes is the reason the Japanese rightly took over the market. 1950's design and build quality.
Ugh!
However, might look nice on a plinth in your living room.
V
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Hmm, a Rocket 3 must be quite rare nowadays, they didn't make many of those. That's going to be bad news for parts although as a Triple, if I remember right there were a few made under the BSA and Triumph badges in the late 60s to mid 70s. These are real enthusiasts bikes.
My father has been riding bikes since his teens and owned pretty much every major British bike from the 50s and 60s. BSAs, Royal Enfields and Triumphs.
I can sum up his feelings about the British Motorbike Industry. He has a '61 BSA Gold Star which is almost mint but requires a fair bit of tinkering but sounds absolutely fantastic and a '78 Honda CB250 which he gets serviced reguarly and doesn't miss a beat as he uses almost daily.
It's a heart over head decision I'm afraid.
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I think some the comments made above are an over simplification of the demise of the British bike industry. Or perhaps I could leave the word "bike" out the pervious sentence. I could wax lyrical, but don't think I'll bother, as too many people just seem to want to decry GB and slag it off.
The Rocket is a rare beast. I seem to recall that under investment in tooling meant that each cylinder in the block had to be machined individually, so apart from switching the costs from capital to production, it also made it pot ('scuse the pun) luck whether you got properly aligned bores.
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Yes I recall the individually matched parts bit as well, often meant that once a re-build came along it was never the same again.
This bike shares some parts with the early Triumph Tridents and these might not be so hard to find. The quality of these items were a very mixed bag due to the fact both Triumph and BSA were in their death throes at the time of production and some were just slung together to generate income.
A very good one 30 years on might be er quite good a not so good one (and there are a lot of bitsas about) will empty your wallet faster than a money emptying thing.
as ever
Mark
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I think the people above are being a bit negative. Growler is a HD man so why he is so down on UK build quiality I don't know. Anyone remember AMF HD's?
The BSA is a thing of rare beauty and if you want it have it. Life is too damn short to not have what you want.
I assume two things:
1) It is to be a weekend plaything and not you main mode of transport.
2) You have some basic mechanical ability and workshop facilities, and basic basic is all you'll need.
In which case tinkering with the thing is all part of the fun. Plus I have found with British classics you plug in to a sub-culture of really nice people who will all help you out. Like the masons but cheaper and more fun...
Go to a classic bike autojumble and talk to a few people, you'll see what I mean.
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If you want a Beezer classic get a 50's or early 60's one like an A10. They were reasonably soundly engineered if somewhat crudely made (oil leaks included at no extra charge). I know, I used to sell 'em and ride 'em. I could guarantee every BSA after 1962, that's the C15, B40, A65, all that lot went out of the shop and was back within a week for something or other. The company I worked for eventually moved to selling Honda 50's because they had so much warranty work they were turning regular customers away!
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I'm considerably more enlightened now, thank you all.
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lezebre I have just the bike for you. My pal Rolly of the local Burn MC has a spotless burgundy metallic 1973 Honda 750 with auto transmission. Second owner, 53,000 km and never had a spanner on it save for servicing, never been dropped. Ridden regularly at weekends. Definitely got classic cred. Has to sell, his wife is complaining about his 2 Harleys and a V-Max cluttering up the place.
Pity it's in the Philippines! Bit tempted myself actually.
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Just to add to Thommo's view.
I've a friend with a BSA Rocket, never been apart and looks about three year old. He uses it as a third bike, his second is a Harley. The BSA is a wonderful machine and appreciated by a bloke with real taste.
Another contact who has been into bikes for years and knows the score had £8K for something interesting, £12K if pushed. A Rocket was his machine of choice but he couldn't track one down in genuine condition....folks are keeping the decent ones.
An interesting classic (bike or car) really doesn't need bullet proof reliability as a top priority.
In any case many of these classics would perhaps have just one or two known weak spots (perhaps crank, bearing, oil seals etc). There are some excellent specialists these days producing uprated components to address such issues.
M.M
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cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2461...2
Except that it's also in the far east, and I dunno if its tiny mileage is because it's been ridden sparingly, or because it basically doesn't work.
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It all depends on why you want it. I don't think they were that bad, but some aspects of bikes, such as tyres, suspension and electrics, have improved beyond all recognition in last 30 years (not to mention the service intervals, which used to be roughly every week). However, since you clearly don't want a new bike, then why not? It will certainly have character...
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Thanks JB,
Character I'm sure they had even when new..
Actually, six is too strong for me, I was looking for one for three, but after a couple of months of looking on the web, and with regard to some of the comments above, it's pretty clear that that amount would only be a down payment, plus the risk that I'd get one that would never be right. Pretty though, ain't she (sigh)
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Funny this thread should resurface: I was the other day in Angeles City with the American Steel Chapter there (they own a pub which does the finest porterhouse ever to have passed my lips, but that's another story) and met a Brit exile like me with a '73 Triumph Trident, not so differnt from that BSA. He said he had had the entire thing rebuilt by a well-known local bikeshop to the kind of exacting standards it needed, the Filipinos are very good at that, and claimed it was fairly trouble free. But that had meant putting in a lot of non-standard parts, he had a long list of I forget what but mainly Japanese. And...despite the new chrome...dunno, it still looked trashy compared with the Triumphs of the 60's I used to ride.
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Funny this thread should resurface
Funny thing is, despite the interval, I still occasionally see myself in my mind's eye negotiating the curves and junctions of the A-road that bisects the town, astride that gleaming Hondamatic, taking bites from the breakfast muffin in my left hand...
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