British Motorcycles of the 1960s and 70s (Shire Library) Paperback – August 23, 2011

I was taken back at the size of this book, I didn’t read carefully. I was looking for an accompanying Mick Walker British bike book to accompany my ‘largeer’ Italian bike book. However, in its ‘smallness’ and somewhat lack of detail, it was surprisingly well written and illustrated. It was hard to find anything wrong with it, aside from its size.

At first, I was excited about this book, because I have a Triumph and a BSA from the '70s. I would have liked to have awarded more stars, but I couldn't for the simple reason that this book way just way too short at only 62 pages. I did learn some new information, and the pictures were good, but honestly... 62 pages to cover two decades of the history of the British motorcycle industry? Next time, before I order, I'll pay closer attention to the number of pages.

An easy read that gives a quick review and summary of the English motorcycle industry and it's demise. Goes into it a little deeper than just talking about the bikes, also talks about the social and business aspects and their affect on the industry and management complacency or ignorance. Also some nice pictures in there.

Very superficial and not very compelling read. Facts were accurate but nothing in depth.. much better books out there to read about the industry demise

Nice short resume of the British Motorcycles of just before the collapse of the British Motorcycle industry. Nice pictures too.

Excellent and informative book.

Dad loved this book!

Not much to it.

Great for light reading

アドバタイズされていない同じブック / アドバタイズされていない同じブック

Great book for those who love Triumph.

More of a magazine than a book

I bought this book because I enjoy reading about classic British motorcycles. Unfortunately there's not a lot in there that's actually about bikes. Considering that this is supposed to be a book about British motorcycles of the 1960s and '70s it seems astonishing to me that the Triumph T140 Bonneville rates just one photo, and almost nothing at all in the text! That's right, the last and arguably the best known british twin, which survived into the eighties and, for a spell in Britain in the late seventies, actually outsold every other 750, including those from Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki, doesn't even get a mention beyond one solitary photo of the silver jubilee model, and a fleeting acknowledgement of good sales in the USA. So for me, a hugely disappointing book, which mostly just regurgitates the same old stuff about the decline of the British motorcycle industry whilst largely ignoring the actual products thereof. If you read this book and nothing else on the subject, you'd go away thinking that every bike produced in Britain in the period covered was a load of rubbish (except, of course, the Commando), everything the Japanese produced was perfect and the Triumph co-operative was what put BSA out of business. Hmm. Bert Hopwood's 'Whatever Happened to the British Motorcycle Industry?' is a far superior and more informative work, although to be fair, this book is far too short to have had a chance to cover that subject adequately. It's unfortunate, then, that in trying and failing, it also spectacularly fails to cover what its title would lead one to expect.