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Can you identify this bike of my mothers from 1960?

1215 Views 12 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  CaptainMidnight85
Can you identify this bike of my mothers from 1960?

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My guess - BSA B33 1955-ish
Think Captain is on the money, quick search online pictures are very close
Looks like a BSA to me also.
Well all of her bikes were British bikes up until she started riding Vespas later in life. She started out on her boyfriends bike when she was 15 in 1959 and then kept riding all her life until her health would permit it no longer. She was still riding a motorcycle to work up to the 8th month of being pregnant with me, stopping every morning at the same bus stop full of people to throw up each morning.

Somewhere I have a list of all the bikes she had, but cannot locate it at the moment. They included BSA Bantams, Triumphs, and two of a name I had never heard before, something like Morgans or Martins.

This picture is dated 1960, Location would be in or around Southampton England, and perhaps was her first or second bike?
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Some of the bikes she owned included the BSA Bantam, Triumph, a Matchless, an Ariel, plus two consecutive Fancis-Barnetts, which became the James motorcycles. There is also a picture of her somewhere sitting astride her boyfriends motorcycle when she was only 15, she would go over to his house in the early AM and steal his jacket (which was far too big) and keys and take his bike for an hour or three ride before he would wake up, not bad for a girl who was raised to be a lady and wore full skirts!
Can you identify this bike of my mothers from 1960?

Bike is a Francis Barnett, 249cc. "Cruiser 80". Probably 1959.
yes ,I agree ,it certainly looks like a Francis Barnet cruiser, I had one :)

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Looks like we have a winner with Twistgrip.

Also thanks for that poster Wexy.

Although do you think that it has two pipes or perhaps the same looking bike with a single?
In 1957, the Cruiser 80 was introduced.
Francis-Barnett was forced
to fit the new 249cc AMC single cylinder engine into the Cruiser 80,
however these engines proved to be problematic and AMC even sent some of their own engines to Villiers for modification.
AMC reverted to using the trustworthy Villiers twin cylinder engines in later Cruiser 80s.

In 1959 the Falcon 87 was introduced. This was powered by a 199cc single cylinder two stroke AMC engine. Production of the Falcon continued until 1966.


Also, in 1959, came the Cruiser 84. This featured a fully enclosed rear wheel and leg shields as standard equipment.
With AMC themselves in financial trouble, Francis-Barnett production was transferred from Coventry to the James factory at Greet in 1962 in order to cut down costs.
The James company had been taken over by AMC in 1951.
AMC continued to manufacture both Francis-Barnett and James machines, however the designs became very similar with only minor differences.​
The colour and badges distinguished the difference between the two marques.
Francis-Barnett machines were 'Arden Green' and James machines were maroon.

Interestingly enough I remember my mother stating that she had had two James bikes, one was green and the other burgundy (maroon).
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Good job Wexy. Hard for some of us to know what y'all had over there way back when.

I like the option list in that ad for the bike. Has ANY small bike like that here in the US ever had a option list even half that extensive? Motorcycling had a entirely different place day-in and day-out for that Company to have spent resources on coming up with a list like that for a rider.

Your Mom was a Trooper!
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