Motorcycle Trader mag feature, circa 2010

born again
E
ver been tempted to jump in and buy a classic bike?
Here’s a hot tip: do your research first. Of course you
could do what I did, which is dig out the info and then
cheerfully ignore the advice.
A few years ago I had a hankering for a Sunbeam S7.
Never heard of one? That’s understandable, as they were
released 64 years ago when only half-developed. Needless
to say, Sunbeam S7s have never scored the legendary
status accorded to two-wheeled British icons such as
Vincent, Bonneville or Commando.
No, it wasn’t reputation that sucked me in, but looks. In
the flesh, the S7 is a truly handsome piece of machinery.
The sweeping curves sit up on balloon tyres, while the
reverse hand-levers and the view across the distinctive
Smiths Chronometric speedo somehow ‘do it’ for me.
Perhaps I should have taken more notice of the advice
from an international owner website: “Restoration of this
model is not recommended for those with shallow pockets
or without considerable engineering skills.” Frankly, I
have neither. Mine was a runner, so how hard could it be?
Here’s a tip when it comes to old vehicles. If it’s got
wheels and an engine, it’s eventually going to be trouble –
the only questions are when and how much. In this case,
we’re talking about a machine over six decades old and so,
while it was sold to me by a friend, in good faith, no-one
should have been surprised when it decided to start
Challenging
history
As GUY ALLEN discovered, classic
bike ownership can involve joy, fire
and monster bills.
Above: Erling Poppe astride his prototype Sunbeam.
Back then he was all smiles… Right: Over six decades
later, Poppe’s legacy lives on – both confounding and
delighting in equal measure.
38 mctrader.com.au
pics: lou martin
shedding some alarmingly expensive parts. Before we get
too deep into that, let’s have a quick history session.
Bike of the future
Englishman John Marston set up the Sunbeam company
in 1895 and produced his first car four years later. Singlecylinder motorcycles came along much later – from 1912.
The machines developed a reputation for being premium
kit, something which lasted until the company was
bought by AMC in 1937.
AMC developed a new single, but war time work soon
took over the factory’s operations. BSA bought the outfit
in 1943 and, in November 1944, the company turned its
attention to developing “the machine of the future”.
The company hired engineer Erling Poppe as the head
designer. Though Poppe at the time was working as a bus
engineer, he in fact had strong motorcycle experience,
including the ill-fated Packman & Poppe Motorcycles
from the 1920s. Evidently co-founder Packman died after
an argument with a salesman, then the factory burned
down, then the new owners got wiped out by the Great
Depression. I’m guessing Poppe’s nickname wasn’t
‘Lucky’.
Sunbeam invited the public to provide ideas on the
machine of the future, via a series of stories in The
Motorcyclist magazine. It’s also said that Poppe originally
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born again
mimicked a captured BMW boxer, but the design was
rejected as being “too German”.
In any case, Poppe’s end result was radical for its day:
a tandem twin with an all-alloy construction, overhead
cam, massive dry clutch and shaft drive.
Some of the publicity touted it as a two-wheeled car,
while it was sold as a gentleman’s tourer, priced at over
£200 – a fortune for the day.
A small batch of very early models were famously sent
to South Africa for police work, and were promptly sent
back as the vibration was so severe as to make them
unrideable. This forced a hurried design change to include
rubber-mounting for the powerplant.
There were three models from 1946 to 1957: the original
S7 in black, with reversed hand-levers; the S7 Deluxe
in green, which internally was a complete redesign; and
the S8, with slimmer wheels and guards to lighten and
modernise the look.
Stewart Engineering, which bought all the original
factory stock and records, has supported them with a parts
service since 1960, and estimates there are no more than
200 of the original 2000 S7s left running, worldwide.
Mine, called Winston, was built in 1947 and shipped to
Bennett & Wood in Sydney in 1948.
CHALLENGES
Here’s another cheerful bit of advice from the owner
website: “This model [the original S7] generally
commands the highest of the shaft drive Sunbeam prices
mainly due to historic interest, however it also provides
the least usable motorcycle of the three. Reliability
although modifiable is not great… the handling is poor
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in comparison with either of the other models and
performance was always a compromise.”
Great, so if by some miracle I get it to run long enough, it
will try to kill me, but slowly. Here’s what happened.
•Ride one. It ran okay but the charging system had gone
to lunch. Just made it home. Distance: 15km.
•Ride two. It was a hot summer day, the traffic was
heavy for a Saturday and it stalled at the lights, in front
of a huge line of cars. Tried to disassemble its own
carburettor. Called for a trailer. Distance 5km.
•Ride three. Went ‘paff’ at an intersection and sulked.
Called for a trailer. Distance 3km.
And so it went spiralling down, until one day it expired
at the end of the driveway – at least I didn’t have to call
for the trailer.
Above: If only Guido had found the ‘reliability switch’ in
the early days of his S7 ownership…
Above right: Despite the early teething problems, the
Sunbeam is now up and running – and giving Guido no
end of riding pleasure.
Below right: ‘Stripper’ eyes the S7 from a safe distance.
You’d be wary too, if you’d narrowly escaped a torching
on an earlier test ride!
Time to bite the bullet. Initially I asked Phil Pilgrim of
Melbourne’s Union Jack Motorcycles to give it a service
and new tyres. The tyes turned out to be the same as fitted
to Harley WLAs – so we had some sort of base point to
start with.
Along the way we discovered Penrite Oil’s website to be
useful – the only place that was able to recommend the
correct fluid for the somewhat delicate bronze worm rear
drive.
While the engine itself was sound, as time went on we
discovered two major problems: the generator on the
front of the powerplant was self-destructing, while the
distributor had a bent shaft and was not long for this
world. Not a problem, you would think. Well, the only
THE EASY WAY
There is of course a much easier way to tackle this whole classic
motorcycle gig, which is to buy a mainstream model that has
had all the freshen-up work done. It will cost you more initially,
but odds-on the additional expense will be nowhere near as
high as a restoration. After the Sunbeam (which I’ve kept) I
bought a 1974 Triumph Trident. This one came recommended
by Phil Pilgrim of Union Jack Motorcycles and has been a gem.
Tony, the previous owner, had given it a no-expense-spared
engine rebuild a few years earlier and had done little riding on
it since. It was priced towards the top end for that model, but
was not ridiculous, and I didn’t argue the number. I gave it a
service and updated the ignition. It starts easily and has proved
to be a stress-free and reliable weekend toy. Both Pilgrim and
Spannerman reckon it’s as good as new. Money well spent.
available bits were for the later Deluxe model, which
meant Winston’s components had to be hand-made.
City Auto Electrical Services in Melbourne took on
the task, including a complete rewire. Jack, the owner,
is a wizard at this stuff, though this job tested even his
patience. One afternoon I turned up there to discover him
and mechanic ‘Stripper’ staring at Winston like a couple
of startled rabbits.
“I just brought it back from a test ride,” explained
Stripper, “And it caught fire!”
Great – when I perused The Sunbeam Owners’ Bedside
Book, I must have missed the chapter on self-immolation.
Despite the fact it tried to turn him into toast, Stripper
developed an affection for the bike and suggested a
few more jobs that needed doing. One of them turned
out to be replacing the kickstart quadrant, also made of
bronze, which I’d flogged out during one of my somewhat
petulant and perhaps violent attempts to restart the
monster.
There were numerous other tasks, by the end of which
we were on first name terms with the good folk at
Stewarts.
FIRED UP
Guess what? You can get them to run! I dropped in at
Jack’s to congratulate Stripper on his work, only to be
told that Winston was his last job as a mechanic – he’d
gone truck driving. So Winston was Stripper’s last job as a
mechanic… what had we done to him?
The weather of course was stinking hot the day we
took the photos for this story and that, combined with
the constant stop-start nature of photo shoots, soon had
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41
born again
back, under its own power, without having to open
a toolbox. In fact, there’s a chance this will become a
Sunday ritual.
The S7 is a peculiar thing to ride. It rolls around
on the big wide tyres and, while the suspension is
primitive, the ride from the sprung saddle is very
comfortable. Performance is ‘stately’, thanks to a
meagre 17.7kW (24hp) pushing a lump that weighs in
excess of 200kg.
Its low compression engine (6.0:1) has a pleasant
enough beat and is happiest when kept humming
along at around 80km/h. Meanwhile the gearbox is
surprisingly good for its age. The right-foot pattern is
one up/three down and has a long throw, but is free of
false neutrals.
Steering feels more like you’re tacking upwind than
pointing a motorcycle and the brakes are atrocious by
any current standard. You find yourself leaving big
gaps in the traffic and having a minor panic attack
any time some Wally up ahead decides to slam on the
anchors.
All indications are that, with gentle use, it won’t
need to see a spanner for a very long time. Which
is just as well, as early on the running costs were
working out to around $200 per kilometre. Which
means a Sydney to Melbourne run would cost around
$176,000.
I actually love riding it. When it’s humming along,
it engenders thoughts of a different if not gentler era,
while there’s no question that Sunbeam got the styling
spot on – so much so that the Guggenheim Museum’s
The Art of the Motorcycle book (which followed on
from an international exhibition in 1998-2001) lists
the S7 among the models that had long-term historical
significance. And
let’s face it, on
a machine like
this, you get
plenty of time
to think about
the challenges of
history. n
RESOURCES
Top: That donk is good for a modest 17.7kW (24hp). Above:
Primitive suspension is helped along by a sprung saddle.
Winston sounding like a distressed asthmatic. So here’s
a tip – think about the time and place the bike was
designed for and try to ride it accordingly. Evidently a
machine built for English weather and 1940s traffic is
never going to be happy commuting in near-40-degree
temps in the Antipodes in 2010.
Other than that, and some revision of my kick-start
technique (one is advised to ‘press’ the lever, not kick
it to death in a lather of rage), there have been no real
dramas. I’ve now succeeded in riding it somewhere, and
42 mctrader.com.au
Books
• The Sunbeam Owners’ Bedside Book. A
folksy owner manual written by the good
folk at Stewart Engineering, who succeed
in making light of the numerous challenges of owning
these machines. Invaluable, if you can obtain one.
• Sunbeam, by DW Munro. An interesting little period manual you’ll
occasionally find on eBay.
• Sunbeam S7 & S8 Haynes Super Profile, by Robert Champ. A neat
collection of anecdotes and history, with some period road tests –
out of print but often available on the web.
Websites
• www.classicglory.com – international owner group
• www.stewartengineering.co.uk – UK maker of Sunbeam parts