Cafe Racers and a 'British' style for cars...

[jimi]

Feb 5, 2023 0:48:08 GMT carledo said:

That is truly lovely and takes me back to the beast. Mine had a larger, squarer gas tank and the seat was thinly padded GRP rather than alloy, but yes pretty much 2 peas in a pod! I still lament my lack of pictures of mine, I was too busy riding it to take them at the time (on my box Brownie camera)

Steve

One of my friends built a Triton that sounds exactly like yours, unfortunately I have no pictures of it

Edit:
A couple of recollections of that Triton, it had the oil tank built into the fuel tank, with twin filler caps, hand built 650 Triumph motor with Weslake heads.
It was one fast bike, it actually got raced a couple of times at East Fortune, Dave took me out on it once scared the curse word out of me lifting the front wheel while accelerating uphill 😂 the bike was called Thor, with the name painted on the tank sides 😎


Talking of pictures my first camera was a 127 Brownie

[HoTWire]

Scanning some old photographs, came across this and thought it belonged here

[carledo]

Feb 5, 2023 1:38:13 GMT jimi said:

Feb 5, 2023 0:48:08 GMT carledo said:

That is truly lovely and takes me back to the beast. Mine had a larger, squarer gas tank and the seat was thinly padded GRP rather than alloy, but yes pretty much 2 peas in a pod! I still lament my lack of pictures of mine, I was too busy riding it to take them at the time (on my box Brownie camera)

Steve

One of my friends built a Triton that sounds exactly like yours, unfortunately I have no pictures of it

Edit:
A couple of recollections of that Triton, it had the oil tank built into the fuel tank, with twin filler caps, hand built 650 Triumph motor with Weslake heads.
It was one fast bike, it actually got raced a couple of times at East Fortune, Dave took me out on it once scared the curse word out of me lifting the front wheel while accelerating uphill 😂 the bike was called Thor, with the name painted on the tank sides 😎


Talking of pictures my first camera was a 127 Brownie

I remember Tritons being popular in the day, A marriage made in heaven! Triumphs built the best engines, but Norton frames (and therefore handling) were unsurpassed.

This all, of course, before the Japanese invasion of the mid 70s. Later on, a mate built a Norton featherbed frame with a 500cc Kawasaki twin, that was a fearsome thing and ridiculously quick. Plus it managed to keep the oil INSIDE the engine! Of course, it got a lot of healthy derision from the oldtimers (in their 30s) and accusations of sacrilege. But only till they got beaten by it!

The same sort of theorising has influenced my car building. Vauxhall, at least in my opinion, make the best, cheapest and most reliably powerful engines, but can't build a chassis for toffee. So I put Vauxhall motors in Triumph shells. Seemples!

Steve

[ironmighty07]

Keep pondering this thread, and the question what marks a "British style" and the "café racer" question.

Lots of focus on roadster style, but often a British style, for cars, looked towards a rally influence than racer...
There are some simple cues, bumper delete, dished rims and hints of weekend racer(bucket seat/white roundel/the sporty note from the exhaust being obvious ones).
So it "could" be a sports car(TR or MG) but equally it "could" be a Cortina Mk1 or an A40....

[redratbike]

Mar 14, 2023 15:04:01 GMT ironmighty07 said:

Keep pondering this thread, and the question what marks a "British style" and the "café racer" question.

Lots of focus on roadster style, but often a British style, for cars, looked towards a rally influence than racer...
There are some simple cues, bumper delete, dished rims and hints of weekend racer(bucket seat/white roundel/the sporty note from the exhaust being obvious ones).
So it "could" be a sports car(TR or MG) but equally it "could" be a Cortina Mk1 or an A40....

well i was after an A40 and almost had one 1275 motor , alloys , bucket seats was going to turn it into a goodwood style racer but some one out a deposit on it , it just became available again this week but i’m into an mgb gt now .. bloody typical but i’ll do my best to give it a cafe racer look

[HoTWire]

As per the original post, drawing inspiration from actual Cafe Racer bike builds seems like a good thing too

pipeburn.com/bmw-r65-cafe-racer/

pipeburn.com/yamaha-xjr1300-by-gas-retro/

as well as the gentleman racer type stuff

[truckdoctor]

Mar 14, 2023 18:55:02 GMT redratbike said:

Mar 14, 2023 15:04:01 GMT ironmighty07 said:

Keep pondering this thread, and the question what marks a "British style" and the "café racer" question.

Lots of focus on roadster style, but often a British style, for cars, looked towards a rally influence than racer...
There are some simple cues, bumper delete, dished rims and hints of weekend racer(bucket seat/white roundel/the sporty note from the exhaust being obvious ones).
So it "could" be a sports car(TR or MG) but equally it "could" be a Cortina Mk1 or an A40....

well i was after an A40 and almost had one 1275 motor , alloys , bucket seats was going to turn it into a goodwood style racer but some one out a deposit on it , it just became available again this week but i’m into an mgb gt now .. bloody typical but i’ll do my best to give it a cafe racer look

WoW . that's some sunroof

[ajprice]

Mar 14, 2023 18:55:02 GMT redratbike said:

Mar 14, 2023 15:04:01 GMT ironmighty07 said:

Keep pondering this thread, and the question what marks a "British style" and the "café racer" question.

Lots of focus on roadster style, but often a British style, for cars, looked towards a rally influence than racer...
There are some simple cues, bumper delete, dished rims and hints of weekend racer(bucket seat/white roundel/the sporty note from the exhaust being obvious ones).
So it "could" be a sports car(TR or MG) but equally it "could" be a Cortina Mk1 or an A40....

well i was after an A40 and almost had one 1275 motor , alloys , bucket seats was going to turn it into a goodwood style racer but some one out a deposit on it , it just became available again this week but i’m into an mgb gt now .. bloody typical but i’ll do my best to give it a cafe racer look

I can see now where a lot of the Nissan Pao styling came from. I know the Pao was supposed to be more Renault 4, but there's definitely some A40 in it.

[norm75]

Feb 5, 2023 1:38:13 GMT jimi said:

Feb 5, 2023 0:48:08 GMT carledo said:

That is truly lovely and takes me back to the beast. Mine had a larger, squarer gas tank and the seat was thinly padded GRP rather than alloy, but yes pretty much 2 peas in a pod! I still lament my lack of pictures of mine, I was too busy riding it to take them at the time (on my box Brownie camera)

Steve

One of my friends built a Triton that sounds exactly like yours, unfortunately I have no pictures of it

Edit:
A couple of recollections of that Triton, it had the oil tank built into the fuel tank, with twin filler caps, hand built 650 Triumph motor with Weslake heads.
It was one fast bike, it actually got raced a couple of times at East Fortune, Dave took me out on it once scared the curse word out of me lifting the front wheel while accelerating uphill 😂 the bike was called Thor, with the name painted on the tank sides 😎


Talking of pictures my first camera was a 127 Brownie

funnily enough I have one of these in my shop for sale

[austinpowers]

Mar 25, 2023 13:26:14 GMT norm75 said:

Feb 5, 2023 1:38:13 GMT jimi said:

One of my friends built a Triton that sounds exactly like yours, unfortunately I have no pictures of it

Edit:
A couple of recollections of that Triton, it had the oil tank built into the fuel tank, with twin filler caps, hand built 650 Triumph motor with Weslake heads.
It was one fast bike, it actually got raced a couple of times at East Fortune, Dave took me out on it once scared the curse word out of me lifting the front wheel while accelerating uphill 😂 the bike was called Thor, with the name painted on the tank sides 😎


Talking of pictures my first camera was a 127 Brownie

funnily enough I have one of these in my shop for sale

I have one in my front room, it’s in mint condition. Don’t know if it’s worth much.

[rysz]

Not sure if we have seen this one from Wheels day, needed a slight altitude adjustment but otherwise it was spot on!

Rysz.

[HoTWire]

www.mathewsons.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-66---1957-mg-a/?lot=12750&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=40&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=96&pn=1&g=1

Actual race car could be perfect cafe Racer with a few less stickers.

[munky]

I know it’s a bit of a stretch. I saw this parked outside an independent brewery about a month ago, surrounded by ‘normals’.
It looked amazing!

Unfortunately by the time I managed to turn around and find a parking spot (so I could take a picture) it had gone.

It turned up at a local show and still looked cool.

[braaap]

^^^
Saw this in Your own thread and thought for a moment that would be that squareback someone put on mx5 underpinnings:

[munky]

There’s something about them, that is just undeniably cool. Even a pup wants to drive one!

[munky]

A mini bounce, into 2024!

[HoTWire]

Seeing as we can embed Instagram:

http://instagram.com/p/C2FLmUfJUZT

[jimi]

That elan looks great, I suspect the handling is compromised, but it looks great 😎

[jimi]

Talking about Elans, I came across this picture taken in the early 70's of a friends Elan, fits nicely into this thread. It's not a Sprint, just a standard Elan painted in Gold Leaf colours, but still fast, I had a 1275 Midget (with a Downton Stage 2 engine) at the time and got a shock when I drove the Elan, way faster and much better handling/brakes than the Midget (and it was no slouch)

Edit

In fact that's the headlight of my Midget in the picture

[fogey]