When I was a kid, I had an uncle who was something of a rebel. Big British bike guy, he went through several Triumphs and Norton’s even Ariel’s . He would come thundering into the neighborhood, often with a friend riding his own Norton and I can remember it impressing the hell out of 13 year old me. but the bikes that always stood out in my memory we’re those chrome tanked BSA’s with the sunburst emblem on the tanks. He must’ve went through three of those. Those bikes just had the sound and the look down!
I got all hot and bothered about thirteen years ago to find and buy one for myself. The Spitfires had become too collectible, most of them these days only change hands at collectors auctions, so I set my sights on an A65 Firebird Scrambler, they didn’t exactly grow on trees either. I used to go to the local mini mart store and get the latest monthly installment of Walnecks Classic Cycle Trader magazine, remember those?
I would carry those magazines around in my back pocket and wear out the pages looking at those grainy black and white photos, reading and re reading the ads. Almost without exception, everything was out of state, nothing was ever for sale in Arizona.
Then one day an ad popped up here, less than twenty miles from my house. Not a scrambler but an A65 street bike. I went to see it, it looked exactly like this.
It was beautifully restored, a 650, but with a story and some baggage that came with it. When he found it the seller told him that it was an exceedingly rare 750. BSA made a special run of only 200 bikes to sell in the USA so that they could qualify to run that displacement in races here. The old guy I went to see saw dollar signs dancing in his eyes , bought the bike and then spared no expense to have it professionally restored.
THEN he finds out that the papers had been forged and the serial numbers tampered with. They pulled the motor apart and measured the bore and stroke and sure enough it was a very common 650, worth a fraction of what he had in it, and now he was stuck with a bogus bike with forged paperwork. This is the bike that he THOUGHT he was buying.
Well I did make the drive over to look at it, and the guy was practically desperate to sell it. He started it up and I looked at it, but decided it was too much hassle.
I never did find me a BSA. In the back of one of those Walneck Cycle Traders, I came across a dealer in Iowa, Baxter Cycles, a real straight shooter, I wound up buying a 1976 Triumph Bonneville T-140V from him. It was a great bike and in hindsight probably the better bike. BSA crankshafts rode on plain bearings and had a reputation for oil starvation and spinning those bearings. But I gotta tell you, I still get warm fuzzies thinking about that Firebird........
So did any of you ever own one?
I got all hot and bothered about thirteen years ago to find and buy one for myself. The Spitfires had become too collectible, most of them these days only change hands at collectors auctions, so I set my sights on an A65 Firebird Scrambler, they didn’t exactly grow on trees either. I used to go to the local mini mart store and get the latest monthly installment of Walnecks Classic Cycle Trader magazine, remember those?
I would carry those magazines around in my back pocket and wear out the pages looking at those grainy black and white photos, reading and re reading the ads. Almost without exception, everything was out of state, nothing was ever for sale in Arizona.
Then one day an ad popped up here, less than twenty miles from my house. Not a scrambler but an A65 street bike. I went to see it, it looked exactly like this.
It was beautifully restored, a 650, but with a story and some baggage that came with it. When he found it the seller told him that it was an exceedingly rare 750. BSA made a special run of only 200 bikes to sell in the USA so that they could qualify to run that displacement in races here. The old guy I went to see saw dollar signs dancing in his eyes , bought the bike and then spared no expense to have it professionally restored.
THEN he finds out that the papers had been forged and the serial numbers tampered with. They pulled the motor apart and measured the bore and stroke and sure enough it was a very common 650, worth a fraction of what he had in it, and now he was stuck with a bogus bike with forged paperwork. This is the bike that he THOUGHT he was buying.
Well I did make the drive over to look at it, and the guy was practically desperate to sell it. He started it up and I looked at it, but decided it was too much hassle.
I never did find me a BSA. In the back of one of those Walneck Cycle Traders, I came across a dealer in Iowa, Baxter Cycles, a real straight shooter, I wound up buying a 1976 Triumph Bonneville T-140V from him. It was a great bike and in hindsight probably the better bike. BSA crankshafts rode on plain bearings and had a reputation for oil starvation and spinning those bearings. But I gotta tell you, I still get warm fuzzies thinking about that Firebird........
So did any of you ever own one?
