B.S.A. Golden Flash vertical twin-cylinder motor cycle, 1953. BSA Cycles has its origins in the Birmingham Small Arms company, founded in 1861 by fourteen Birmingham gunsmiths. In the 1880s the company branched out into the newly emerging bicycle trade. In 1903 the company first experimented in motorcycle construction and by 1951 it was successful enough to buy the struggling Triumph Motorcycles Ltd, making them the largest producer of motorcycles in the world. The Golden Flash motorcycle had been introduced a year earlier, a larger version of the 1938 Goldstar model. It led to the rise of the parallel twin engine layout, which was to dominate British design throughout the 1950s and 60s, and with its all-over gold paint scheme proved a popular escape from post war austerity.
BSA Golden Flash vertical twin-cylinder motor cycle, 1953. See TOP record for extended information.
Original petrol feed pipe, damaged by vandals, from 1963-322 pt.1. See TOP record for extended information.
