It’s always been lighter, more agile and, dare we say, better-looking than the Milwaukee firm’s classic big machines. Harley-Davidson has offered the Sportster model since 1957 in countless variations, with ever-increasing displacements from 883 to 1,200 cc. Rocket 3s are still nice bikes, even though they presided over BSA’s demise. Check engine serial numbers to ensure someone hasn’t swapped in a Triumph motor. It had a twin-leading shoe-drum front brake, not a disc, barely adequate for the 120-plus-mph top speed. The Rocket 3 was a 740-cc transverse triple (but slanted forward versus the Triumph’s engine), developing 60 horsepower and sporting signature “ray gun” mufflers. Thus the Triumph Trident and BSA Rocket 3, designed by Triumph in Meriden, England, and both built by BSA at its Small Heath factory. By the late Sixties, once fierce rivals BSA and Triumph had banded together for survival. I grew up lusting after BSA Road Rockets, and I owned a DBD34 Gold Star Clubman for a while they’re collector items now, but you can still have the last of the “Beezas”-the inimitable Rocket 3-for under $10k.
Birmingham Small Arms produced weapons for the British military, which made the transition to manufacturing motorcycles during the Thirties a comparatively easy leap.
