Local hero
In 1958 the hula-hoop was invented, rock star Elvis Presley topped the charts with ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ Wolves won English football’s first division and in the UK the price of an average house was £2390. Young TV viewers saw the launch of Blue Peter, or if you were a budding motorcyclist the weekly press was full of the launch of the new Ariel Leader two-stroke twin and BSA’s single-cylinder C15. Some buyers’ aspirations of personal transport were slightly more modest and down at Pankhurst Motorcycles in Weymouth on May 23, 1958, Elwin Graham handed over his £101-13s-7d and took charge of a brand new 150cc James Cadet.
Elwin can’t have imagined that 60 years on, his James would still be running with just over 13,000 miles showing on the clock, and that four owners later it would still be in Dorset, the county where itit had to wait until the following year when the new model – similar to the one we have on test – appeared. The design team at the south Birmingham factory had come up with a new frame built from tubes and pressings, with the rear swinging arm controlled by a pair of forward mounted springs hidden by the centre enclosure and covered by the deeply valanced rear mudguard – one that to the casual modern observer looks a bit like a monoshock rear suspension system.
