I cleaned up the BSA a little bit over the course of the last few evenings. The bike doesn't look too bad with all the chrome shined up. It's kind of interesting to have the two bikes parked next to each other. They're both 650's but 35 years different in age. The BSA is physically a small bike but was considered a large bike back in the day. Especially when most of the bikes you saw on the street were Japanese 305/350 cc. The "big" Brit bikes were mostly 650 or 750 cc displacement and were the hot items. Norton did come out with an 850 but other than the Harley's, the 650/750 BSA, Triumph or Enfield was as big as they came. As such, these were the bikes that were ridden for long distance touring, commuting, as well as raced and turned into choppers. That's why it's rather rare to find one that is still in the stock condition. That then brings us to what to do with the newly acquired Lightning.
Here's what the stock 1971 Lightning is supposed to look like. I personally was never all that crazy about the looks of this model. Not that it looked all that bad, it just didn't look like this:
I really liked the look of the Spitfire. They had the round air cleaners and the much bigger sidecovers, as well as the fiberglass tank. The chrome disk on the front wheel was a little cheap looking when you got up close to one but the bike sure looked good in the magazine advertisements from the late 60's.
Here's a pair of what I would consider the classic Lightning. The one in the top photo is, of course, from a James Bond movie. While a guy wouldn't need a full fairing like that one unless he was planning on riding coast to coast, or be that heavily armed, having a good looking chick all dressed in leather on the saddle behind you was certainly part of the appeal of a motorcycle. With a BSA Lightning a guy could be as cool as Bronson or Brando - especially if it looked like the one in the bottom photo. As far as I'm concerned this is probably the best looking BSA they ever made. If you put this one next to the later model, it might look older but it's definitely sexier.
But if you want to talk sexy, here's the one. Late model forks and brakes, a little custom sheet metal on the side covers, nice looking pipes and mufflers, and the classic chrome on the side of the gas tank.
My brother had asked me about making him some sidecovers for his bike but the conversation didn't go very far. Like me, I don't think he cared much for the style of the late model ones, especially with the new tank. I preferred the look of the round air cleaners also - more classic British, less Honda 350. Since my brother was heading in the direction of new tank and sidecovers, I'm thinking that's the way I need to go. I do have all the stock parts if I want to weld up the gas tank and get the sheet metal repainted. I need to talk it over with Surly and see what he says.
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