Nostalgic Motorcycle Brands Are Coming Back: BSA Up Next?
Posted by Mike Werner on Nov 4th 2016
| The good old days of motorcycling; leather clad men riding 2-stroke motorcycles generating noise and smoke while smoking their cigarettes and their girlfriends riding pillion holding on for dear life, hair in the wind. Riding into the sunset towards the next watering hole. The good old days… |
| Well, many bikers are feeling nostalgic enough to want the brands of yesteryear back. Already the crop of current motorcycle manufacturers have been bringing back vintage motorcycles; Ducati with its successful Scrambler, BMW with its Nine-T, Japanese manufacturers bringing back their favorite “old” models. |
| Some brands have remained vintage like the British-turned-Indian brand, Royal Enfield, with a model that has remained unchanged since its conception a century ago. Or how about the Russian Ural brand? Both using the adage “if it works, don’t fix it”. |
| But it’s not only existing manufacturers bringing newer versions of their classic models. Some old brands that have disappeared decades ago are coming back as well. Already brands like Norton, Bultaco and Ossa are on their way back. The latest brand making a revival? BSA! |
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| BSA, an abbreviation for Birmingham Small Arms company, was founded in 1861 as a firearms manufacturer (one of the makers of the famous Lee-Enfield rifle) who branched out, like many of these companies in those days, into motorcycles, airplanes, bicycles, cars (they at one stage owned the Daimler brand) and other equipment. |
| BSA motorcycles was a very popular brand in the post WWII days after having bought Triumph motorcycles in 1951. But slowly the BSA company started disintegrating, with products sold off to competitors or closed down. The last BSA brand still in existence today is the BSA Bicycle, a bicycle brand made in India but not having anything more to do with its original bicycles. |
| But now the Indian motorcycle manufacturer Mahindra bought the rights to the BSA motorcycle brand. Mahindra have created a special unit called Classic Legends to accommodate their two classic brands; BSA and Jawa (which they also recently acquired). |
| Mahindra, an Indian manufacturing conglomerate that recently bought the French scooter manufacturing arm of Peugeot, is putting into place a large expansion product portfolio to conquer worldwide motorcycle sales. |
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| According to Mahindra management, a BSA motorcycle should see the light of day in the next two years. It’s going to be interesting to see what they plan to do; make a complete new model, or bring back an oldy-but-goody model, like the BSA Royal Star (1969) or the BSA C15 Star (1959). |
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| So who knows what they are planning, but I’m sure it’s going to be pretty. Would you buy a vintage revived model? |
