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  • The Classic MotorCycle

    What might have been

    Dec 04, 2019 7 minutes
    Words and photographs: PHILLIP TOOTH

    Big names like Douglas, Triumph and Zenith might have dominated the scene before the First World War, but that didn’t stop anyone with a passion for speed from building a motorcycle and putting a new name on the petrol tank. And that’s just what Charles Thackray did.

    The owner of Denby & Co, with premises at Contrast Works, he was one of the best riders in the local Ilkley and District Motor Cycle Club. One sunny Saturday morning in June 1911, ‘Chas’ arrived for the start of the club’s reliability trial. And he was riding the first Contrast-JAP.

    The 500cc single-cylinder side-valve engine was installed in a frame of his own design. Chas used Druid forks, a popular choice for manufacturers and specials builders alike, and a Bosch magneto – the best in the business. He obviously knew how to screw a motorcycle together because the single-speed Contrast-JAP effortlessly completed the 180-mile run from Ilkley to Newark and back to win him the President’s Trophy and a gold medal that would look good dangling from the chain of his pocket watch.

    A sturdy man with a warm smile and a handsome moustache, Chas was back

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