On the early dirt tracks, before Douglas, before JAP, before Jawa, a Rudge was the motor to have. With a four-valve OHV head and four-speed gearbox as early as 1924, they held sway in all aspects of motorcycle sport, so when speedway hit Britain in the late Twenties, a Rudge 350 or 500 was an obvious choice for those who could afford one. Great logo, taken mainly from the Whitworth company when the two bicycle manufacturers merged in 1894. The first Rudge-Whitworth motorcycle offered to the public came in 1911, making this the 100th year of Rudge motorcycles, though production ended in 1939. MP
Friday, 30 April 2010
Rudge-Whitworth
On the early dirt tracks, before Douglas, before JAP, before Jawa, a Rudge was the motor to have. With a four-valve OHV head and four-speed gearbox as early as 1924, they held sway in all aspects of motorcycle sport, so when speedway hit Britain in the late Twenties, a Rudge 350 or 500 was an obvious choice for those who could afford one. Great logo, taken mainly from the Whitworth company when the two bicycle manufacturers merged in 1894. The first Rudge-Whitworth motorcycle offered to the public came in 1911, making this the 100th year of Rudge motorcycles, though production ended in 1939. MP
I have seen this logo before, with the name of some very famous rims!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.discovolantemoto.co.uk/wheels/borrani-rims/prod_418.html
Yep. Borrani used to import Rudge-Whitworth wheels to Italy and then, I think in the 1940s, maybe a little later, began manufacturing them under the Borrani name.
ReplyDeleteMP