RealClassic

UNFINISHED Symphony

The Regular Reader will know I like quirky. I’m always on the look-out for the frisson of excitement when you see something that knocks the normal and forgoes the conventional. So imagine how thrilled I was to end up racing against Will Bratley and his delightfully zany Levis / Triumph. We’ve raced several times now, from dirt hillclimbs to shale speedway ovals to grasstracks, the bike appearing in several different guises over the last few years. As Will says; ‘It’s a project, an ongoing one, we just keep playing with it. Bikes like this are about having fun and they keep evolving. That’s the great beauty of it, it never ends...’

The story starts when Will’s dad, Walter, picked the bike up some 15 years or so ago. It was all 1937 Levis then, re-imported back from Australia. Initial plans at restoration stalled when it was discovered the engine was ‘shot to pieces’. The project languished a while, as projects are often wont to do, until

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