Ajs/matchless - New Book.

[laird387]

Hi,

The arrival of t'interweb and the apparent lack of great interest in printed books these days has made me rethink one of my latent projects. Don Morley was one of the constant contributors when I was producing Off Road Review and we were working together to produce a new book describing in detail the development of the AMC competition models. Our work was virtually complete and almost ready to go to the printers when Mary's terminal illness took a turn for the worse and caring became the priority.

The work has lain dormant for almost fifteen years until I found t'interweb, as it were, and started producing the digital magazine ORRe, which has given an opportunity to dust off the latent book, revise and refresh it with additional images taken in the intervening period, and publish it in serialised form, starting in issue 11.

At the moment it tells the full production history from the pre '39-'45 War through to the last competition model to be built in the Plumstead factory and already contains over two hundred images, making it, to my certain knowledge the best reference source available today.

I am including some 'appetisers' from an early copy of a family photograph taken by a Box Brownie, or similar, camera and a picture of Peter Ainley riding the last trials AJS produced in Plumstead, photographed by Mary. How am I certain it was the last AJS - well I have consulted the factory despatch records and I owned the very last Matchless trials model to be made in Plumstead and the two models had the last engine and frame numbers issued.

Enjoy.

Edited November 17, 2014 by laird387

[16cs ajs]

Deryk, I'm intrigued by the picture of the last trials Ajay to leave the factory. What year would that have been, 64? It looks like the short stroke motor, with the push rod tubes cast in to the alloy barrel. My late 61 original Ajay has the long stroke mill with chromed push rod tubes. The riding gear in the photo looks more mid 70s period? Please keep posting. And yes, I have subscribed to ORRe. Ts.

[laird387]

Hi 61 ajs,

Yes it is the 1964 motor and bike, it was catalogued as the AJS Experts model and the equivalent Matchless model, that I owned and sold to John Moffat when I retired from riding, was catalogued as the Matchless Maestro. The riding gear was universal in days gone by, a Barbour or Belstaff suit - unless that was out of your price range, like young Arthur Dovey, whose Mum made him a waterproof suit out of gaberdine material she bought in the local market - Arthur was still wearing the same suit when he got his first works ride. One novelty which, sadly I haven't got a coloured image of, was the maroon Barbour suits made for Olga Kevelos and the rest of the James team for one of the SSDT's. When I published ORR I told all the readers that if they wanted to see their photograph in the magazine the best way was to stick to traditional clothing - in my book wearing fancy pyjamas in trials was not the way to go.........

Those AMC models were the last British pre-units to appear in a sales catalogue and be produced by the factory, which is why when we were looking for a suitable cut-off date for machine eligibility we set the pre-unit class at Pre-65, the unit models continued to appear, such as the C15T, Enfield Crusader and the Tiger Cub, but they were lighter, steered and handled very differently so they rode the same sections, but in the Unit class. That way the riders on the bigger bikes were competing only against other riders on similar models - as were the riders of unit machines. Yes it meant a lot of classes, but that was just simple administration, whereas today's task of setting multiple routes just seems like a lot of pointless work for no good effect, but that's just my opinion.

The riders were quite happy with the system, because although they were only competing against similar machines in their class, they were riding the same sections so could compare themselves with all the other riders in all the other classes - 'cos they had all ridden the same trial........

Another interesting factor you will see as you read the serialised story in the magazine, is the number of bikes that were ridden to the event, and then home again afterwards - all bearing registration plates and tax discs, even in some of the scrambles. My old friends Gordon Jackson and Johnny Giles rode their works AJS and Triumph machines respectively together to events like the Three Musketeers, the John Douglas, etc., from their homes in Kent, through the deserted London streets in the early hours and out on Western Avenue to the A4, that way they shared various tools, etc.

But it was a different world then.

Deryk Wylde

[totalshell]

1998 i was riding my enfield bullet to and from yorks classic events.. i did live in silsden at the time though, i once rode home from Bingley moor with a hole in the alloy tank stuffed with a bit of wood.