THE ONE TO HAVE
Don’t get our resident AMC Anorak started about Associated Motor Cycles’ habit of producing ‘interim year’ models, or you may be enthused right out of existence. Just accept that the methodical pattern of development adopted by Plumstead’s paragons of engineering perfection occasionally produced a ‘one year only’ example of a specific machine, a bike which was not quite like its forebears or its successors. In some cases, an interim model might have a better brake. Or worse forks. Or a frame filched from a competition model. Or it could be a complete outlier, a unique machine… as seen here.
Sometimes the modification was a great success and was heralded as a great improvement, which inevitably meant it was immediately discontinued. Occasionally, the substituted components caused nothing but aggravation – if not at the time then definitely to poor restorers half a century later who could never quite find exactly the right part for their nut-and-bolt restoration.
Once in a while, the stars aligned and an interim model happened to offer the ideal combination of tradition and technology which
