Lotta Torque About

AMC hybrids. All outrageous desert sleds and cafe racer hooligan machines, right? Wrong. Frank Westworth remembers their brother, the sidecar tug
 

This is a something of a personal story, so be warned! It concerns a small journey of discovery which lasted for several years and a gentle fascination which continues to this day. I’ll start it right at the beginning, so far back in time that dinosaurs had only recently ceased roaming the hot swamps of the Cheshire Gap.

My unreliable memory had been jogged by a photo posted onto the RC Facebook group by a kind man. It showed a grinning buffoon – me – standing next to an old G11 Matchless. A vile bike, that one, but almost free, as was the way in 1975 or so. I bought it for very little as a non-runner, fixed it a little and sold it on for a little more, as was the way in 1975 or so. Every penny helped.

But I’m not here to talk about a G11, pleasant though they can be. When I collected the unhappy 600 twin, it came with a pile of other AMC parts, including a frame, forks and at least one wheel. They looked odd to me, even in 1975 or so, and I wondered how on earth someone had grafted what was plainly a set of Norton Road holder forks to a Matchless frame. The insanity carried on round the back of the bike, where the swinging arm had been altered fairly radically to accept a Norton rear wheel. I asked around, in those internet-free days, but no one I knew knew more than I about it.