Many of us may delight in the Brough Superior motorcycles, but not everyone can afford the exotic prices that they can reach in today’s market. However, there is nothing to prevent us from reading about them and having a vicarious pleasure in their might and majesty.
It was George Brough, motorcyclist, manufacturer and publicist, who created the eponymous Brough Superior.
His father, W.E. Brough had become a motorcycle manufacturer at Vernon Road, Basford in Nottingham in 1902, first producing a single cylinder machine and later developing a flat-twin engined bike, these machines were called simply “Brough”. So it was that our GB had motorcycles and motorcycling in his blood from a very early age.
GB established the small Haydn Road factory being opened by 1920, production moved there and the rest, as they say, is history, until WWII put paid to motorcycle (and car) production.
It is reported that his father was rather perturbed when the name “Brough Superior”, was conjured up over a pint in a local public house, the name actually suggested, it is said, by one, Bob Blay. W.E. Brough was understandably none too pleased, “I suppose this makes mine the Brough Inferior” he is quoted to have remarked. In fact the ongoing relationship would appear to have been good, W.E. continued production of the horizontal twin until around 1925 and upon his death in 1934 GB took over the original Vernon Road works.
It is well known and recorded that T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) loved motorcycles and motorcycling, “the greatest pleasure of my recent life has been speed on the road”, expressing the joie de vivre that he felt in speed and fine machinery.
TE owned seven Brough Superiors, naming them George I to VII after the eponymous maker George Brough or a generic name of “Boanerges”, this being the biblical name of the Apostles James and John, the “Sons of Thunder”. This possibly a reference to the deep-throated exhaust note of the V-twin engine of these machines, although interestingly it is a name used by the Arabs for some of their fleet thoroughbred horses. An eighth was on order at the time of his death in 1935.
There is a wealth of ephemera and books relating to these machines and we have included a selection here for you to enjoy.
So sit back and take your pick.
The legacy though endures in this fine literary output. For George Brough, his gift to us, is perhaps, more tangible, if transient, the enthusiasts maintain his surviving fabulous iron steeds, reviving them, so the Brough “bellow” can still stir the heart and their appearance delight the eye. The few photographs which have been passed down to us, capture, in a single brief moment, frozen in time as it were, like insects in amber, those occasions when TE enjoyed his motorcycling, “the greatest pleasure of my recent life”.
Though we all have our favourite marques and models, for me a Scott Flying Squirrel.
