How’s this for a mission statement: “We wanted the style and panache of what the Rockers and Ton-Up Boys used to ride back in England, but with the power, reliability and push-button starting of a modern motorcycle. We think we’ve struck the perfect balance between heritage and haul-ass.”
The speaker is Richard Varner, the American collector and riding enthusiast who started Streetmaster, a small shop dealing with the new Triumph Bonneville. In the tradition of coachbuilt car companies from the last century, Streetmaster rebodies the Bonnie into something slicker and sleeker.
In fact, the company goes even farther and has spec’d a whole new twin-shock chassis. A fan of street-trackers, Varner enlisted Richard Pollock of Mule Motorcycles to build a carbon-fiber bodied tracker that debuted at last year’s Quail Concours in Carmel Valley, California.
That project was then turned over to the So-Cal Speed Shop, which came up with the “Miler” just shown at the Quail.
Alongside the Miler in the Streetmaster booth was another Bonneville-based special, the “Brighton,” a café-racer named after the posh British seaside town that was favorite burn-up destination for the Rockers.
Taking design cues from Varner, Pollock went to work on the Brighton, his first-ever café-style bike after building 80 or so street-trackers over the years. As with the So-Cal Miler, Streetmaster’s proprietary chassis was used, and the motor gets a reworked cylinder head, 39mm Keihins, lightened flywheel and mappable ignition to the tune of 74 horsepower.
Signature item is the brand-new, old-style Grimeca front drum brake (below), a potent four-leading-shoe job. Rear drum started life on a Yamaha XS650. Shouldered aluminum rims and Dunlop TT100s, of course. The aluminum fuel tank and wasp-like tailsection have panels painted in Amaranth Red, a vintage Triumph color.
Like the So-Cal bike, the Brighton will begin its production run this coming September. Price has not yet been set.
