Motor Cycles in Colour

There are motorcycle books that concern themselves with torque curves, valve timing, and the sort of mechanical detail that causes certain readers to go misty-eyed and others to look for the nearest exit. And then there is Motor Cycles in Colour (1974) by Eric E. Thompson , which understands a simple truth often neglected by the more solemn corners of motoring culture: motorcycles are not merely engineered, they are looked at. Published by Blandford in 1974 , this is a book from that particularly wonderful era when ?in colour? still carried a certain glamour, as though the publishers were proudly announcing that modern civilisation had finally advanced far enough for readers to admire petrol tanks in something approaching their natural splendour. Black-and-white photography may be noble, atmospheric, and serious, but motorcycles have always had a slightly exhibitionist streak. Chrome wants to gleam. Paint wants to flash. Badges want to announce themselves. A motorcycle, after all, is never entirely innocent of vanity. And rightly so. The motor cycle occupies a special place in the great museum of human invention because it combines transport, danger, engineering, style, noise, impracticality, and self-image in one highly polished package. Cars may be sensible, trains may be efficient, bicycles may be virtuous, but motorcycles remain gloriously theatrical. They are the machines most likely to make a person feel either magnificently alive or immediately aware they should have packed waterproofs. A book like this is therefore more than a catalogue of machines. It is a visual parade of design history, each motorcycle carrying with it the assumptions and ambitions of its age. Here are the lines, the tanks, the frames, the stance, the chrome, the ambitions. Some machines look lean and purposeful, others look as though they were designed by men who believed fuel tanks should be nearly as expressive as opera. That is part of the fun. A good motorcycle book reminds you that engineering is rarely just about function. It is also about mood, aspiration, tribe, and the desire to look faintly heroic while standing still. Eric E. Thompson was a seasoned and respected motoring writer, which means this is unlikely to be a shallow picture book for the merely decorative enthusiast. Instead it sits in that satisfying middle ground where knowledge and admiration meet. The motorcycles are there to be appreciated visually, certainly, but also as examples of evolving design, national character, and the strange and wonderful business of turning controlled explosions into personal identity. And what a spread of personalities motorcycles possess. British bikes often look stoic and upright, as though prepared to endure weather and empire with equal restraint. Italian bikes tend to look stylish enough to demand admiration before they have even started. Japanese machines arrive with increasing confidence and competence, quietly preparing to reorganise the entire industry while everyone else is still polishing their nostalgia. To see motorcycles in colour is to see these national temperaments on full display, painted, plated, and occasionally glorified beyond reason. There is also something beautifully 1970s about the premise. Today we take colour imagery for granted to the point of boredom; in 1974, a colour book on motorcycles still had a faint whiff of luxury and occasion about it. It promised not just information, but spectacle. This was a chance to admire machines properly, in their intended plumage, rather than imagining whether a tank was crimson, racing green, metallic blue, or that very specific shade of practical disappointment known only to aging British finishes. This Good copy, offered by the ever-revving stockpile of Crappy Old Books , is exactly the sort of volume that belongs in the hands of someone who enjoys motorcycles not only as machines but as objects of design and cultural theatre. It will suit the enthusiast, the collector, the armch.…