There is a remarkable story attached to this beautiful Matchless. Max Smeed runs a motorcycle restoration business in Stockport. When he was only eight years old he found a rusty old bike in the corner of his uncle’s shed which turned out to be Max’s father’s bike. His father had bought it new when 20 years old. He chose this 350cc single, because the next batch of 500cc bikes would not be ready for 6 months. Max sold the bike for £16 – and regretted it ever since.
Max became hooked on biking and gradually moved into the restoration business – but he was always on the lookout for an elusive Matchless G3L identical to his father’s. In 1946 and ’47 most bikes were exported to the United States; many American soldiers had enjoyed riding British motorcycles when in the UK during the war.
Then in 2018 a search on eBay finally unearthed the very bike Max wanted. It was in Deal in Kent, the county of his birth – and he was due to visit his parents there. He established that this example was running and restorable, so the deal was done. Max joined the AJS Matchless Owners Club, and with the help of its spares scheme and the few companies still trading parts for this bike he restored it over 18 months to the condition we now see in this Snapshot. Max has still not done many miles on the bike since restoration, but he is going to keep it.
Matchless is one of the oldest marques of British motorcycles, manufactured in Plumstead, London, between 1899 and 1966. It had a long history of racing success; a Matchless ridden by Charlie Collier, son of the company’s founder Henry Collier, won the first single-cylinder race in the first Isle of Man TT in 1907.
The first Matchless motorcycle was made in 1899, and production began in 1901. In 1931 Matchless bought AJS from the Stevens brothers. Matchless also bought Sunbeam in the late thirties, but Sunbeam was sold to BSA in 1943.
In 1941 Matchless motorcycles introduced telescopic front forks called “Teledraulic” forks, considered by some to be the first major innovation in British front suspension in 25 years. During the Second World War, Matchless manufactured 80,000 G3 and G3L models for the armed forces. By 1956 they had eight models in their line up, but the number had dwindled in 1965. The G3L was the first to feature the “Teledraulic” front forks.
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