Cool runnings

In the 1920s, some makers were innovative with regarding how to keep the temperature of engines’ down.

- JAMES ROBINSON

That Alfred Angas Scott, designer and manufacturer of Scott motorcycles, and Granville Bradshaw, famed for any number of creative designs, including his eponymous proprietary engine, were among the brightest engineering minds of their era, indeed any era, cannot be doubted. Though they went different ways in terms of what they produced, both realised the importance of keeping their engines cool, with Scotts always – apart from the odd anomaly, including very early on and the late vintage single – water-cooled, and Bradshaw opting for oil-cooling for his engine – as exampled in the Montgomery featured here.

These two motorcycles have both come out of my dad’s modest collection, the Scott having been in his ownership long-term, the Montgomery a much more recent acquisition, bought (in 2012) on the persistent suggestion of my brother and I and actually (I think) taking the place of a three-speed, closed frame Scott that was sold to JudyWestacott and which is now a regular sight at many events.

The reason Simon (my brother) and I thought dad should have a Montgomery, is that the company was founded in Bury St Edmunds, the Suffolk market town where, in its West Suffolk Hospital, Simon and I were born. It’s about 15 miles from where dad still lives – and where I’ve been for several months now too – and so Montgomery is probably the closest we have to a ‘local’ manufacturer, although by the time our example was built (in the early 1920s) Montgomery had moved to the motorcycle-making hotbed of Coventry, to be nearer the proprietary manufacturers of products the company relied upon; though Bradshaw engines weren’t made there, many other parts were.

The Scott