Velocette Motorcycles

Velocette emblem

Velocette Motorcycles Background & History

The early history of some of Britainʼs finest motorcycle manufacturers from the classic era are surprisingly similar. Velocette Motorcycles was established by a German-born émigré to England, just like Triumph. They started out making bicycles, just like Triumph, BSA, Matchless and Ariel. By 1896, Johannes Gutgemann was building bicycles, and in 1904 he bought out the Belgian firm Kelekom Motors and began experimenting with motorised bicycles. Heʼd changed his name to Taylor by this time, and his company Taylor, Gue Ltd produced its first true motorcycle in 1905, called the Veloce, with a whopping 2 horsepower. It failed miserably, and the company went broke. He changed names again, this time to John Goodman and formed a new company, Veloce Motors Ltd, to produce motorcycles.

Velocette Motorcycles: The Early Years

After some early failures, by 1913 it launched a new 2-stroke motorcycle designed by Goodmanʼs son Percy, who had now joined the company. They named the motorcycle ‘Velocette’. It was the first use of the name, and by 1916 they had changed the name of the company to Velocette. World War I started, and all production was devoted to munitions for the duration. After the war, the new K1 250cc single did well in the marketplace and on the racetrack, including the Isle of Man TT. They pioneered several novel innovations for the time, like the throttle-controlled oil pump. They were also light, handled well and were powerful for their day. By 1930, Velocette  Motorcycles had developed its new H-series 2-strokes which it built until 1946.

1929 Velocette KTT

This 1929 Velocette KTT brimmed with all the latest engine technologies, gleaned from Velocette’s racing efforts. SOHC, shaft-driven with bevel gears on both ends, exposed hairpin valve springs and 9.0:1 compression helped to make these winning machines at the track. 

Velocette K-Series Motorcycles

Velocette Motorcycles knew it needed to expand its product line to survive and so entered into the 4-stroke market in the early 1920s. The new machine was to be very advanced for the times, with an OHC, 350cc displacement and a single cylinder. It was introduced in 1925 as the ‘K’-series (K for kam, the German word for cam). Soon the KTT was racing at the Isle of Man TT and Brooklands. The smooth-running, reliable machines scored very well in competition and cemented Velocetteʼs reputation as a builder of high-quality motorcycles. Street versions were soon to follow including the KSS (Super Sports), KTP (twin-exhaust ports) and the KN (normal). The OHC engine continued on the roadsters until 1948, continuing to pioneer new innovations such as using strobe lights for accurate ignition timing, and the worldʼs first successful positive-stop foot actuated gear change system.

1946 Velocette KSS

1946 Velocette KSS. All K-series had OHC engines. Velocette built elegant-looking bikes that were also rugged and well-engineered.  

Velocette M-Series Motorcycles

Velocette Motorcycles had great success with its OHC singles, but in 1933 it decided to introduce a new line of OHV (i.e. pushrods) machines, as a way of reducing its production costs while delivering a lower-priced motorcycle to market. The K-series had been expensive to produce. Skilled workers on the production line hand-assembled the tricky shaft-and-bevel camshaft drive. The simpler OHV design would be quicker to produce and would require much less highly-skilled labour to assemble. The first of these was the Velocette MOV, a 250cc OHV single with a square bore-and-stroke ratio of 68mm x 68mm. It was an immediate hit and proved to be an able performer, capable of 78mph, a stunning speed at the time for a 250. MOVs were also known for their reliability and excellent handling.

1938 Velocette MAC engine

The 350cc 1938 Velocette MAC was an OHV single, designed to be simpler and thus cheaper to produce than its bevel-drive OHC siblings, Velo’s K-series. 

Velocette MAC Motorcycles: Bigger is Better

The MOV was doing so well that a larger version was needed and by lengthening the stroke, the 350cc Velocette MAC was created in 1934. It became Velocetteʼs best-selling model. The much-needed profits were invested in an entirely new design, a 500cc OHV single to be called the MSS in 1935. This utilised an all-new frame, developed from the Mk V KTT race machines and shared this frame with the KSS Mk II, 1936−1848. The MSS was another runaway hit for Velocette. Speaking of racing, Velocette motorcycles took 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places in the Juniors class (350cc) at the 1947 Isle of Man TT, and in 1950 it won the 350cc World Championship.

1967 Velocette LE

This ugly little mutant is a 1967 Velocette LE. At one time, Velocette thought it represented the future of motorcycling. Fortunately, for some strange reason, Britain’s police forces loved them. 

Velocette Motorcycles: Postwar & the LE

Immediately following World War II, there was a pressing need in the UK for simple, inexpensive, utilitarian personal transport to get to-and-from work. In 1948, Velocette Motorcycles attempted to tap into this market with their radical new Velocette 'LE'. It stood for ‘Little Engine’, and boy was it. The 149cc water-cooled, flathead horizontally-opposed twin made all of 8 horsepower. It was mounted in an unsightly pressed-steel semi-step-through frame with a swing arm and telescopic forks. Designed by Charles Udall, it was supposed to be cheap and easy to produce, so that it could be delivered to the market at a very low price. But the radical new design (including one of the earliest examples of unitised engine/transmission construction) proved to be complicated and expensive to produce. Strangely, despite all this, it proved to be a runaway best-seller for Velocette, in fact its best-selling model ever! Still, the high cost of tooling and manufacture made it almost impossible for Velocette to make a profit. One nice feather in its cap was the wholesale adoption of the LE by British Police.

Velocette Vogue Motorcycles

Velocette Motorcycles entered the 1960s looking for direction. It thought it had it because the spartan LE had been such a good seller. It, therefore, introduced the odd Velocette Viceroy (a weird little 2-stroke scooter) in 1960, following it up just one year later in 1961 with the gorgeous, but misguided, Velocette Vogue. This fibreglass wonder was completely enclosed, offered decent rider protection, stowage and actually looked pretty good in the flesh. But it still had only the same eight horses as the LE with which it shared engines. But now it was even slower because of the added weight of the bodywork. It failed miserably and few were built.

1964 Velocette Vogue

This 1964 Velocette Vogue shows how elegant they were. Unfortunately, they were underpowered by ‘The Little Engine that Couldnʼt’.

High Performance Velocette Motorcycles

By the 1960s, the motorcycle market had clearly shifted away from practical, economical commuters, and towards high-performance bikes with sporting aspirations. Triumph, BSA and Norton were killing in this market, and by the mid-1960s, the Japanese were taking a major bite out of it for themselves. Velocette Motorcycles never developed a vertical twin like nearly all the other marques in Britain. Velo had only big singles to work with, but it was very good at getting big power out of big singles; which was Velocette’s specialty. First up was the 500 Venom. Then it reduced the bore, turning it into an incredibly robust 350, the Viper. Both came out in 1956. Vipers were very fast to begin with, but Velocette made all sorts of factory racing parts available to its customers, like close-ration gearboxes, racing magnetos, rear sets, alloy rims, etc. In 1961, a Velocette Venom became the first motorcycle in history to cover 2,400 miles in 24 hours. The ultimate evolution of the line was the 500 Thruxton, much faster than the Venom, with 10:1 compression, a hotter cam and an Amal TT carburetor. A Thruxton won the Isle of Mann TT in 1967. Despite all this, Velocette was fighting to survive, financially.

1966 Velocette Thruxton

The 1966 Velocette Thruxton was an absolute beast, but hopelessly outclassed by Britain's vertical twins.

Velocette Motorcycles' Indian Connection

American motorcycle maker Indian had struggled for most of its life. By 1953, Indian was DOA and passed through several hands, all of whom had their own ideas of what an Indian motorcycle should look like. Interestingly, from 1953 until modern times, every Indian motorcycle built was either British-influenced, British-built or had British engines. In 1963, motorcycle repair manual giant Floyd Clymer bought the Indian brand and in 1967 began producing Indian motorcycles in Italy with Royal Enfield 750 twin-cylinder engines. They were well-made bikes with top-quality components but too expensive to sell well. Clymer tried the same thing using Velocette 500 Venom engines in 1969 calling the new bike the Indian-Velo 500. It too failed after just 122 were produced. In 1970, both Royal Enfield and Velocette went out of business, ending Clymerʼs supply of engines. Then in the same year, Clymer himself died, and that was the end of the venture.

1970 Clymer-Indian Velo

‘Repair Manual King’ Floyd Clymer dropped a Velocette engine into an Italian frame to create the 1970 Indian-Velo 500. Only 122 were built.

The End of Velocette Motorcycles

Alas, nothing could save Velocette Motorcycles. Their products were hopelessly outclassed and made obsolete by the onslaught of modern, reliable bikes from Japan. They were undercapitalised and so had no hope of developing a new line of state-of-the-art machines. They were still deeply ensconced in old-world design and manufacturing processes, which were craftsman intensive and produced low volumes of products. Like so many classic British motorcycle manufacturers, Velocette Motorcycles was a dinosaur in an increasingly modern world, and in 1970 they became extinct.

Velocette Motorcycles by Model

Velocette KSS

Velocette KTT

Velocette MAC

Velocette Venom

Velocette Thruxton

Velocette LE

Velocette Motorcycle Books


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