Brough
Superior SS 100
Brough
Superior motorcycles
The Brough Superior SS 100 was
designed and built by George Brough in Nottingham
UK in 1924. Although every bike was designed
to meet specific customer requirements (even
the handlebars were individually shaped[1] )
69 SS100's were produced in 1925 and at £170
were advertised by Brough (without permission)
as the 'Rolls Royce of Motorcycles'[2] and all
bikes had a guarantee that they were capable
of 100 miles an hour. The SS100 (Super Sports)
was the first custom motorcycle with components
chosen from many different suppliers. The first
engine (from 1924 to 1936) was the twin cam
KTOR JAP (made by J. A. Prestwich) V twin (upgraded
to a Matchless engine from 1936. Gearboxes were
the 4 stud 3 speed from Sturmey Archer and originally
the forks were from Harley Davidson.
Development
The Alpine Grand Sport was launched
at the 1925 Motorcycle Show and was an SS100
with a full touring specification. In the same
year Brough produced a 110 mile an hour Pendine
Racing Model (named after the Pendine sands
where Malcolm Campbell set a number of world
speed records) with increased ground clearance.
The Sturmey Archer gearbox was upgraded in 1929
for a three speed "super heavyweight"
box to cope better with the 50bhp produced by
the Jap engine[4]. In 1928 Brough introduced
rear suspension and in 1934 the Alpine Grand
Sport gained a seventy-five horsepower overhead
valve Jap engine known as two of everything
as it had two magnetos and two oil pumps[5].
A foot gear change was introduced in 1935 and
a four-speed Norton gearbox in 1936. Development
on all Brough Superior's was stopped when World
War 2 meant that the factory had to be turned
over to war work.
On the 27th of April 2008 at the
Stafford Motorcycle show UK the auctioneers
Bonhams sold a 1934 Brough Superior SS100 for
£166,500 - a world record and the highest
price ever paid for a British motorcycle at
auction.
T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence (known as Lawrence
of Arabia) bought one of the first SS100's in
1925 having previously owned three Brough SS
80's. Lawrence had a fatal crash on the Brough
SS100 on a narrow road near his cottage near
Wareham. The accident occurred because a dip
in the road obstructed his view of two boys
on bicycles. Swerving to avoid them, Lawrence
lost control and was thrown over the handlebars
He was not wearing a helmet and suffered serious
head injuries which left him in a coma and he
died after six days in hospital. One of the
doctors attending him was the neurosurgeon,
Hugh Cairns. He consequently began a long study
of what he saw as the unnecessary loss of life
by motorcycle dispatch riders through head injuries
and his research led to the use of crash helmets
by both military and civilian motorcyclists.
As a consequence of treating Lawrence Sir Hugh
Cairns ultimately saved the lives of many motorcyclists
since.
Lawrence's last SS100 (Registration
GW 2275) was built in 1932 and is on loan to
the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire,
UK
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