The ongoing revival of Britain’s historic motorcycle brands has saved the biggest, and in some ways the best, until last. Triumph, Norton, Ariel, Métisse, Brough Superior, Matchless, Hesketh and DOT are just some of the formerly defunct brands from all of Britain’s two-wheeled yesterdays which have already been resurrected at various times over the past three decades to join Royal Enfield, which never actually went away, in the born-again biking section of British motorcycling’s history store. But now it’s the turn of the biggest of them all back in the day, as for the first time in half a century, a BSA motorcycle is now once again available for customer purchase.
Once the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, and erstwhile owner of its smaller Triumph subsidiary, BSA went under 50 years ago back in 1972 thanks to a blend of catastrophically incompetent upper management and a misplaced sense of innate technical superiority, which the Japanese punctured big time in 1969 with the debut of the four-cylinder Honda CB750.
Classic Legends, a company set up and owned by the Mahindra Group (among other things, the world’s largest manufacturer of tractors) and two private investors named Boman Irani and Anupam Thareja, purchased the BSA trademark and IP years ago and have launched the re-born brand with its most iconic model, the Gold Star. Although BSA was best known for its small-bore economic commuters like the Bantam, the Gold Star was a legendary machine and dominated racing for a period. Good examples are now worth a fortune.
Deliveries of the new bike have started in the UK — Australian distribution hadn’t been confirmed as went to press. Initially, production is taking take place at Mahindra Two-Wheelers’ ultra-modern
