The Brough Superior, it's returning!

[xtian]

of course, you are right to underline it for the common people, a Jap engine is not a japanese engine. But we are aficionados. Still ... What continues to make me sad in this project is that Boxer Design used to create some decent looking modern bikes a few years ago. Both creative and innovative, and this think is none.

[DerGolgo]

of course, you are right to underline it for the common people, a Jap engine is not a japanese engine. But we are aficionados. Still ... What continues to make me sad in this project is that Boxer Design used to create some decent looking modern bikes a few years ago. Both creative and innovative, and this think is none.

Yeah, it's not particularly innovative, true.
Neither are the other retro-bikes out there. Those are just built to appeal to a market segment, people who made up their minds what a bike should look like forty years ago. And they are trying to cash in on the ancient brand name.
But you know what? Being innovative, that's also something that too many manufacturers try too much, I think. I honestly think doing something, anything, new is laudable and ossum. But more often than not, they just change the design a little, make some detail alterations to the luggage system or whatnot. Innovating the underlying technology, when something new comes along, is rare enough, simply because new technology comes along rarely and many riders don't like stuff that's too new, too much.
This bike has no pretense about that, though. The most innovative bit on this bike is the Hossack front-end, which isn't new but still rather rare. And they make less of a fuss about that than they do about their entirely mundane mill or chassis. I recall seeing marketing for retro products where it was claimed to be innovative to make something look old. They don't do that, either.
This effort strikes me, so far ... as a bit honest. Like someone thought "gee, that'd be a pretty bike", just went and did it, and is now trying to make a living. Looking over that website, it doesn't even strike me as something marketed at plutocrats, the sort of thing that's assembled by lab-coated technicians in a "factory" designed by some award-winning architect, to help the customers brag about the six or seven figures they paid for it.
Yes, this may be a bit of a let-down for Boxer. But the best, the most perfect bike, is the one whoever is in the saddle enjoys the most (I, for one, doubt I'd enjoy the ergonomics or the surely effortless cornering). Maybe Boxer needed to pay the bills, or maybe they just thought "Fuck it, let's have some fun!". I'd be sad if they'd ended up designing JASB, just-another-sporty-bike, with no feature the mass-market brands don't already deliver, and no design cues to give it any more individuality than anything else.
But as commonplace as the technology in this one may be, you must admit ... stand out from the pack, it does.
What's more, the sheer idea of pulling up next to a modern naked bike, like some Duc, Speed Triple or some Japanese four, and with the clever suspension probably standing a chance against an equally experienced rider when going through the twisties ... on something that looks like that ... that idea I like a lot!
I know such rationale won't make you happy, but perhaps slightly less sad?

EDIT: And consider. How sad would you be if ... Boxer had just presented a bland, mundane bike of some sort, declaring how it's another ossum Boxer thingy, because they were ossum in the past? What if, like Hollywood, they had run out of ideas and just produced mundane pap or re-hashed old ideas? This strikes me as better than that. Quite a bit better. If it was indeed the case they couldn't come up with something as innovative as you'd like, then this would be a case of 'em preferring to do something mildly silly and outrageous, rather than allowing themselves to slide into the boring. If they've indeed run out of ideas, something like this shows, to a degree, that they're still alive. And they'd rather have some fun than just wait for death. You know, like people who do stuff like skydiving, or bungee jumping or ... riding motorcycles.

[AZRider]

This Brough is Fucking Ugly. Cut apart into a catalog of parts, it incorporates some very handsome pieces, and I like what Golgo is saying about the headlight position. BUT viewed as a whole.... If you gave me a random selection of photos of motorcycle components (fork from a Ducati, frame from a HawkGT, saddle from a KLR, side panels from a ZRX, mufflers from a Sportster, etc.) and forced me to use my pathetic Photoshop skills to stretch and blend them into one bike, I could make something more harmonious than this THING.

I also do not like the styling of the original Broughs, but they were built first to the high performance technologies of their day, secondarily to the aesthetic of their day. If any bike built today is true to George Brough's methods and aspirations, it would be Bimota. I believe if he saw is name on a bike hobbled by nostalgia, he would puke in his boots.

Hated the revived Excelsior-Henderson. Hated the pre-Polaris Indian revivals. Curiosity piqued by the Bernard Li revival attempt at Vincent. Disappointed that brand-new Royal Enfields insist on being as unreliable and underpowered as antique Royal Enfields. Glad the revived Triumph finally built the Bonneville and did a respectable job of it. Pleased by the Polaris revival of Indian.

[roadmissile]

The new Urals look pretty badass...

/RM

[xtian]

The new Urals look pretty badass...

/RM

Probably because there's nothing new about it ?

Golgo, I appreciate your effort, but you cannot theorise the (lack of) beauty of a motorcycle. Like any other artistic emotion, it is a complex mix of culture, education, intellect and senses. When you listen to music, you unconsciously place that music in the history of music as you know it to evaluate its relevance with your intellect, its position between creativity (too much and it will not be assimilated to music, not enough and it will sound boring) and tradition (how does it incorporate the standards and makes them evolve), process the logical informations like harmonics, sequences, tune, and finally let your emotion process the whole package before the two hemispheres of your brain gather the information and you come to the conclusion that "yeah man, I dig this tune". Same with a painting, same with a motorcycle. That's why it is said that 80% of people prefer harley-davidson's, but then again, 80% of people don't know shit about bikes, or why people who are motorcycally-uneducated cannot evaluate the difference between an old suzuki gsx600f and brand new cbr1000r.

[Mean Chuck]

To me it just looks like they tried too hard. Bike design should look effortless, not forced.

[Jaeger]

Eh, I still kind've like it. I can see where some wouldn't -- it's "different" -- but I want to see one in person before I give a final yea/nay.

As someone else said, I WANT to like it. Absurd pricetag and all, it's an interesting take on an old classic. I like the chromed tank and fenders, the super-flat profile (like a cat, yes), and that funky engine design.





--Jaeger

[DerGolgo]

The new Urals look pretty badass...

/RM

Probably because there's nothing new about it ?

Golgo, I appreciate your effort, but you cannot theorise the (lack of) beauty of a motorcycle. Like any other artistic emotion, it is a complex mix of culture, education, intellect and senses. When you listen to music, you unconsciously place that music in the history of music as you know it to evaluate its relevance with your intellect, its position between creativity (too much and it will not be assimilated to music, not enough and it will sound boring) and tradition (how does it incorporate the standards and makes them evolve), process the logical informations like harmonics, sequences, tune, and finally let your emotion process the whole package before the two hemispheres of your brain gather the information and you come to the conclusion that "yeah man, I dig this tune". Same with a painting, same with a motorcycle. That's why it is said that 80% of people prefer harley-davidson's, but then again, 80% of people don't know shit about bikes, or why people who are motorcycally-uneducated cannot evaluate the difference between an old suzuki gsx600f and brand new cbr1000r.

I agree. Though with my last post, I was less trying to rationalize why you should find it beautiful but, rather, why maybe you don't have to be quite so disappointed in Boxer Design.

[roadmissile]

The new Urals look pretty badass...

Probably because there's nothing new about it ?

If you're talking aesthetically than sure, I suppose I'm saying modern components in a genuine old school design is better than whatever they were trying to do with this mess. New Urals are fuel injected with disk brakes all around and a host of other changes that apparently make them much safer and user friendly. If you tried to build a superior as a genuine world beating performance bike in this day and age I'm not sure it's even possible, if you updated the old design in componants without ruining the lines I'm certain it would be an improvement on this.

Of course, my idea of a perfect 'classic' is an '82 Katana where the only original parts are a now reinforced frame and some of the bottom half of the engine... That or a Bull Dock KZ1000:



/RM

[xtian]

That was sarcasm of course, sure, Ural probably enhanced the reliability , but in most aspect, they kept building the same bike since 70 years, not a retro style modern bike. Ural's website is a poem in itself, but I'm not even sure that they switched to F.I. yet. The problem of the Brough (not really that I hate it so much that I need to argue, it's just meh) is that it's not a true classic because it is modern, but not modern, because it is disguised as a classic. I have the same moral dilemma with the bonneville, except that the bonneville looks agonisingly good.

[AZRider]

That KZ is badass!

I am going to "go there." Car comparisons. The current Detroit Revival (Mustang, Challenger, Camaro) harvest JUST ENOUGH cues from the originals that they make the relationships clear, while being solidly in the modern design aesthetic of proportions, wheel dimensions, aero effects, high "belt lines" etc. NOBODY would have penned cars like that in 1967, but they very much suit the modern expectation. The Roland Sands R90S I trash-talked above does somewhat the same thing in the moto realm. Triumph has hewn a little more faithfully to the original's lines with the new Bonnie and Scrambler, while Harley has attempted to change nothing visual while updating everything mechanical. The further step out the "retro" spectrum is Enfield and Ural, who simply haven't changed much of anything.

To my eye, this new Brough picks a few design cues, holds to them with fundamentalist fervor, while discarding the entire rest of the Bible. If they had set out to design the New Indian, we might have gotten this:

[Jaeger]

To my eye, this new Brough picks a few design cues, holds to them with fundamentalist fervor, while discarding the entire rest of the Bible. If they had set out to design the New Indian, we might have gotten this:

--Jaeger

[xtian]

the ugly truth

[Rench]

I dig it. It has a modern naked aesthetic (a la the Sportster 48 or any other major manufacturers naked retro things), but it isn't so beat-you-over-the-head retro. I think it stands alone pretty well.

-Rench

[Beemer Dan]

....we might have gotten this:

Now this we can work with!

[greasy]

it looks pretty rad, but it's prolly ridick expensive. and bikes like this are built for, and marketed to, the elite few who can afford them. so they don't have to worry about them being practical or useful. I suppose it's nice to know they exist, cool to see what people come up with, but I'll never be in the market.

[DerGolgo]

I stumbled upon this thread while looking for something unrelated. To my surprise, I found: they seem to be in business, still!
And their bikes still look appealing to me. Even though naming one model the Lawrence is kinda, well. Most people who even know the name Brough Superior at all will know it as the bike that Lawrence died on.

it looks pretty rad, but it's prolly ridick expensive. and bikes like this are built for, and marketed to, the elite few who can afford them.

Yeah. Well. I spent a bit looking around their website.
You know how you can tell they are absolutely and exclusively only for the uber-wealthy: no prices. Anywhere that I looked.
If you have to ask what it will cost, you can't afford it.

[Jaeger]

Their stuff really is hawt, but as you say, I'll never know that joy -- besides, you fart on it and it depreciates.

--Jaeger

[Bigshankhank]

Their stuff really is hawt, but as you say, I'll never know that joy -- besides, you fart on it and it depreciates.

--Jaeger

So what you're saying is, if you see one on the street there is a standing Ootmik order to fart on it for the purposes of depreciating it. Just for spite, fighting the gangster Frankenstein thing and all that.

[DerGolgo]

Their stuff really is hawt, but as you say, I'll never know that joy -- besides, you fart on it and it depreciates.

--Jaeger

So what you're saying is, if you see one on the street there is a standing Ootmik order to fart on it for the purposes of depreciating it. Just for spite, fighting the gangster Frankenstein thing and all that.

How can it depreciate if there is no published price for a new one?
Besides, at this price level. I'm sure they come with a fart pre-installed. Just to spite us plebs.