Fancy a Hesketh?
Did you know you could still buy a Hesketh motorcycle? The name has a history which reads like a badly-written drama, but still persists and, if you're loaded with plenty of spare cash, you can still buy a new one.The company, headed by F1 race team owner Lord Hesketh, developed a high-end V-twin machine - using a custom-built Weslake powerplant - that was up and running as a prototype in 1980.
Manufacture was soon announced and the company was one of many false starts for a revival of the British bike industry, before Triumph's John Bloor made it happen for real in the early 1990s.
Hesketh ended up producing a mere 100 very expensive machines before going bust in 1982. Unfortunately for the company, it started just when the western world's bike market was collapsing.
Dedspite the tiny numbers, the machine has been fairly well supported with spares back-up over the years and many of the people who worked on the original project retained an interest in the brand.
Today a firm called Broom Development Engineering, which does vehicle prototype development, is keeping the marque alive and even making new bikes. Despite a break-in and the theft of much of its stock late last year, the company is working out of premises at Turweston airfield in the UK and is selling modest numbers of its Vulcan 1200.
A bigger and updated version of the original litre bike, the Vulcan sells for an eye-watering $43,000 plus tax - which has not prevented buyers snapping up the first batch of hand-made machines. See www.broom.engineering.btinternet.co.uk.
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