A star is reborn
Few models have achieved such a long-running level of competitiveness as Velocette’s famous KTT, a motorcycle with a top-level competition career which started in the 1920s and lasted well into the 1950s. An interesting detail of KTT-lore is that all KTTs, from the first in 1928 to the last in 1953, run in largely sequential engine numbers, as if to underline the lineage, though admittedly there are several gaps, normally so a new ‘mark’ can start at an appropriate number; for example, the Mk.IV starts at 401, the last Mk.III being 366.
The first overhead camshaft Velocette engine was designed by Percy Goodman, of the Veloce-founding Goodman family, in 1923, although it was 1925 before it made it to production. The early models had ‘Veloce’ on the petrol tank, but soon this changed to Velocette, as that was the name now recognised by enthusiasts around the world. Prior to the Model K, Veloce had been largely the builder of two-strokes; top quality machines nonetheless, but the first four-stroke (since the company’s fledgling years)
