Beschreibung:

Iconic overhead-valve Vintage-era sports model • Production version of a TT-winning design • Offered with history file Wars have always spurred on technological development, the rush to produce ever more powerful aero engines in WWI being a case in point, establishing as it did the superiority of overhead valves over the alternatives when high performance was paramount. There had been overhead-valve car and motorcycle engines before 'The Great War', but with the layout's superiority emphatically demonstrated, it did not take long before new OHV designs began appearing on the world's roads in substantial numbers. Wolverhampton-based A J Stephens first experimented with an overhead-valve engine in 1918 and by 1920 felt sufficiently confident to try their new 350cc racer in the toughest test of the day: The Isle of Man TT. After victory in the 1920 Junior race, when works rider Cyril Williams was able to push over the finishing line, so great was his lead, AJS's new overhead-valve 350 scored a memorable double the following year, Tom Sheard winning the Junior race and Howard Davies the Senior, the first time such a feat had been achieved on a 350. The production version duly made its debut in November 1922, delighting clubmen everywhere with its 'racer on the road' performance. A right-first-time design destined to achieve countless successes in the hands of privateers, the overhead-valve AJS - initially built only as a '350' and known as the 'Big Port' - became available as a '500' for the first time in 1926. Coded 'Model 8', the new 3½hp machine followed the general lines of its successful smaller sibling and distinguished itself in the 1926 Isle of Man Senior TT when AJS works rider Jimmy Simpson became the first man to lap at over 70mph. Its list price was £59 10s, with an electric lighting set available at extra cost. First registered on 26th April 1928, this rare '500' Big Port was purchased in 2010. An older restoration, the machine was previously registered to one Michael Howel Evans, although invoices on file suggest that it was owned subsequently by one Derek Burns. Additional paperwork on file includes old-style V5/V5C registration documents; a quantity of MoTs (most recent expired 2010); a hand-written note listing previous owners; and a copy of Classic Bike magazine featuring an article about the AJS Big Port. The vendor has been advised that this machine might have raced on Pendine Sands.