BSA A7 SS For Sale - 1960 Reg - 500cc Twin, Shooting Star, Original Reg, Lots of £ spent
Nice example of this popular pre-unit BSA. This bike has had a fair chunk of money spent on the engine and ancillaries, plus a load on the wheels. All very recently. New Stainless Steel rims and spokes, new carburettor, new electronic ignition, overhauled dynamo, and a full service. The paintwork and panels are original, and as such retain an element of patina, which can re remedied or left alone, depending on your desire. The main mechanics of the machine are sound and so the bike is overall a very nice machine. We like the A7/A10 models, they are the Land Rover of the classic bike world. Very solid and capable. Comes with original registration, and the Buff Log Book.
Copy from Classic Bike Guide:
“A sports machine in the true tradition…the Star Twin has few equals as a machine for sustained high-speed road work”. So said The Motor Cycle in April 1952, reviewing the latest example of the BSA A7. It is fair to say that The Motor Cycle liked the A7, praising its: “zestful acceleration, excellent road holding, and the ability to devour the miles in unobtrusive fashion”.
That zestful acceleration was provided by a motorcycle with a 92mph top speed and a 16.8 second quarter mile. The glowing 1952 verdict was about the plunger model, a frame design soon destined for the annals of history. Within a few years BSA would drop their rigid and plunger models for a new swingarm equipped frame of a design that would endure for BSA until the end of the 1960s.
The original 495cc twin had an engine originally conceived before the Second World War to take on Triumph’s Speed Twin. This first A7 was a machine in which both Val Page and Edward Turner had some input, though Bert Hopwood was in overall charge of the project. At the end of the war Herbert Perkins and David Munro put the finishing touches to the twin and it was launched to an expectant public in 1946.
The vertical twin had a long-stroke iron head engine. It had a single camshaft at the rear of the block, unlike Triumph’s twin cam arrangement, with the pushrods running in a tunnel at the rear of the two cylinders.
A four-speed one-up three-down gearbox was bolted to the back of the crankcases in a semi-unit configuration and it used separate magneto and dynamo arrangements, the drives positioned under the upper twin lobes of the distinctive timing case. Pistons were 62x82mm, it had a 7:1 compression ratio and used a single carb, producing 26bhp. Vibration was said to be minimal, and the engine was designed to run on very low octane on pool petrol. This petrol, a mixture of all available fuels, was between 70-72 Octane and in May 1952 The Motor Cycle appealed for racers to be allowed unadulterated 75-80 octane fuel, as used in aircraft. By comparison modern unleaded is 95 octane.
Please contact us if you have any questions or need more information about this bike.