By Joe Berk
This is another one of those blogs that almost had another title. I considered simply calling it The P11. Hey, if you know, you know. And I know. So does Andrew.
Sue and I were on the East Coast last week (as in literally on the East Coast when we stopped for lunch in Point Pleasant, New Jersey) when I gave my buddy Andrew a call. Andrew is the guy who runs British Motorcycle Gear, a company whose ads grace these pages. You’ve also read reviews by Joe Gresh on some of the top quality gear Andrew offers, including Rapido gloves, the Mercury jacket, and the BMG Adventure motorcycle pants.
Andrew is a true Anglophile (a lover of all things British), although like me, he grew up in the Garden State. We had a nice visit in Andrew’s beautiful home, and then he took us into his garage to see the toys. I was blown away, not just by the motorcycles Andrew parks in his garage, but at how closely they tracked with my list of highly desireable motorcycles.
One that caught my eye instantly was a Norton P11. That was the ultimate hot rod motorcycle in the 1960s. Norton shoehorned their 750cc engine into a 500cc Matchless desert sled frame. When I was a teenager, the word on the street was that nothing was faster than a Norton P11. Norton only made a very few of these motorcycles (I think the production total was less than 2500). Truth be told, Andrew’s P11 is the first one I’ve ever seen in person, but I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It’s parked on the other side of the garage, and my eye skimmed over a bunch of motoexotica when I saw the P11. Man, I would love to own that motorcycle. I don’t necessarily need to ride it; I would just look at it and keep it immaculate. Which, incidentally, is the condition in which I found all of Andrew’s motorcycles.
There was a silver and burgundy 1968 Triumph Bonneville that looks like it rolled out of the Coventry plant yesterday morning. Andrew told me that the Bonneville is sold. Not to me, unfortunately. It’s another I’ve love to own.
Andrew has a Triumph Daytona, and it’s the rare one…the 900cc triple with a bunch of goodies (think triple caliper disks up front, carbon fiber front fender, and other similar go fast and stop fast bits). It is bright yellow (Triumph called it Daytona yellow), just like the Daytona 1200 I owned about a decade ago. But my Daytona was but a mere commoner’s motorcycle. Andrew’s Daytona is the limited-edition version. Like the P11 Norton mentioned above, it’s the first one I’ve ever seen. I live in southern California; I’ve been to a bunch of moto hangouts (like the Rock Store in Malibu) and numerous Britbike events (for example, the Hansen Dam Norton get-togethers). I’ve seen Jay Leno, I’ve seen pristine vintage Indians (real ones, not the current production stuff), I’ve seen four-cylinder Hendersons, and I’ve laid these eyeballs on other similar exotics. But I’ve never seen a limited-edition Daytona Super III or a P11 in person until I visited Andrew.
Another one of Andrew’s bikes that caught my eye was a near-new-old-stock Honda GB500. It has to be one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made. Honda offered these 500cc singles in the mid 1980s. It was a modern nod to (and refined version of) the British Velocette. They flopped from a sales perspective back then, but that’s only because of our unrefined palate and our then-fascination with conchos, wide whitewalls , and beer bellies (think potato-potato-potato exhaust notes and you’ll catch my drift). Like a lot of things, I should have bought a GB500 back then. Andrew’s GB500 is literally in like new condition. It has 535 original miles on the odometer.
There was more…a modern Triumph Thruxton, another modern Triumph, even a Lotus Elise sports car. My eye, though, kept returning to the Norton P11. It really is a visually arresting motorcycle.
At the conclusion of our visit, I asked Andrew if he would consider adopting me. Everyone enjoyed a good laugh about that. They all thought I was kidding. But I wasn’t.
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