The other Panther

Talk of the Panther monoshock made me wonder about the bikes built by Phelon & Moore that came out of Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire and whether they'd ever turned out a dirt tracker. Seems they did, right back at the dawn of speedway in the late 1920s.

But this, below, also caught my eye, a Panther-Cotton hybrid that sold at auction (I'm not sure when) for around £2500. You can get more info on the Bonhams site. Looking at these bikes now, they seem like a precursor to the laid-down motors typical of speedway's modern era.

Panther built bikes from 1904 - 1967 and the big slopers were by far their most famous models, though always more associated with sidecars than hot shoes. MP

Curtiss V8

Right then. A self-built longitudinal shaft-drive V8, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1907. Lace up your thigh-high boots and crack it open to 136 point summat miles per hour. Glenn Hammond Curtiss. A proper bloke. MP