100 YEARS OF BROUGH SUPERIOR
George Brough didn’t have to coin the cherished “Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles” slogan himself that he used to promote the prestigious range of motorcycles built under the Brough Superior name at his Nottingham works — a Motor Cycle magazine road tester of one of his early bikes did it for him first, in print.
But it’s a mark of the respect with which his products were held in the pre-World War II era that nobody ever questioned the validity of such an implicit boast. Until, that is, one day a man from Rolls came calling, requiring Brough to cease and desist from infringing his company’s trademark, else there’d be legal retribution. After an abortive attempt to talk his way out of trouble, Brough hit on the plan of showing his visitor around the small factory, where by chance his hand-picked team of skilled artisans were preparing the bikes due to be displayed on the BS stand at the forthcoming Olympia Show in London. To prevent their fingerprints soiling the gleaming finish of these show bikes, the workers had donned white gloves — allowing Brough to infer that this was the normal modus operandi for such a high-class motorcycle operation,
