STRONG BREW

I’ve heard it said by Matchless aficionados that AJS bikes were built with the bits rejected by Matchless quality control, while AJS fans reckon that AMC used the best 10% of their parts to assemble Ajays. Both tales are I’m sure apocryphal nonsense, myths and fairy tales. However this does go to show just what a strong following these two marques had individually. Back in the day you were either an AJS devotee or a Matchless fan. Never mind that the bikes were virtually identical and had travelled down the same production line, only to have one or other identity conferred on them by the man with the number and letter stamps and the guy who screwed on the badges. Who knows now what process decided which bikes would have which identities? AMC started down the road to badge-engineering way back in the 1930s, long before BMC and British Leyland did something similar. After the war the differences became less and less.

It wasn’t always this way. Prior to the depression of the 1930s, AJS and Matchless were entirely separate companies. The Collier brothers built Matchless motorcycles in London and produced some fine, individualistic machines including early TT winners. By the late 1920s their range consisted of machines from 250cc to 1000cc with side or overhead valves, and one to four cylinders. The Matchless V-twin 1000 motor was even sold to George Brough for his eminently superior machines, as well as being used by Morgan to power their three-wheeled sports cars. Of course it was also used by Matchless themselves in their Model X.

By the mid-1930s, Matchless Motorcycles Ltd had produced a couple of very technically interesting, inline,