A star is born
Back before Brooklands awarded a gold star to a BSA single; long before Valentine Page designed the Empire Star and its siblings; before even the Blue Star was born, BSA were sticking stars on their special motorcycle engines. Legend has it that this procedure started unofficially with a fitter who wanted to keep track of the motors which had upgraded engine internals. It caught on and was adopted as an official factory process, developing into something of a selling point in the showroom.
The small red star stamped on an engine or gearbox demonstrated to the customer that his machine really was equipped with the performance parts which commanded a price premium. That was important in the cash-strapped days of the Great Depression, when the ‘works tuning service’ typically cost £5. By 1932 the competition tuned versions of the 500 singles, fettled by Herbert Perkins, were leaving the factory with a six-point blue star on the timing side casing. But before then…
In 1930, the BSA range had yet to respond to the cash-strapped circumstances and still sprawled across 17 different models, from a two-speed 150cc two-stroke to a 1000cc V-twin. That year saw the introduction of a whole new series of ‘upright’ single-cylinder models, a move away from the long wheelbase, older slopers. The B30-4 was an ohv 250 which weighed less than 224lb so would qualify for the new ‘lightweight’ tax bracket, promised for the next budget. It was ‘an entirely new machine that will make an instant appeal to the motorcyclist who wants a fast lightweight machine,’ said BSA, and it marked the introduction of a wet sump engine with a 2½
