George VI
The names of George Brough and Thomas Edward Lawrence CB DSO are forever linked by association with the Brough Superior motorcycle, with the bike registered as UL 656 being the sixth Brough Superior and the third out of four SS100 models that Lawrence of Arabia owned during his lifetime.
Ninety years have passed since Lawrence was photographed astride this newly-serviced machine, sharing a joke with its manufacturer as he prepared to depart from the Brough works in Nottingham, and UL 656 is now notable as one of only two motorcycles owned by him that are known with absolute certainty to have survived intact.
By the time that he was ready to take delivery of UL 656 in 1929, Lawrence had already owned five Brough Superiors, each affectionately nicknamed George, and he wrote in a letter to George Brough: “Your present machines are as reliable and fast as Express Trains and the greatest fun in the world to drive – and I say this after 20 years’ experience of cycles and cars… The SS100 holds the road extraordinarily.”
Legends are apt to grow at the expense of certain facts, and so it’s worth drawing attention to the popular
