Along with Triumph, BSA once strode the earth as one of motorcycling’s giants, the two British marques once only rivalled by America’s then also dominant Harley-Davidson. Of course, that was nigh on 50 years ago, when, after a couple of decades of malaise that only English socialism and seemingly impossible incompetence can accomplish, Birmingham Small Arms — BSA got its start building guns in 1861 before branching out in bicycles, buses and even power tools — went belly up in the ‘70s.
Like so many famed British marques — Land Rover, Jaguar and Royal Enfield to name but a few — the once proud bastion of British motoring was bought by an Indian company, in this case Mahindra. And thus was BSA, once the biggest purveyor of motorcycles in the world, reborn at the hands of the colonies.
BSA Gold Star Photo by BSA Motorcycles
If Land Rover and Royal Enfield — but not Jaguar — are any indication, they should have made the move earlier. Certainly, the first signs look promising. Taking a page out of history, the first ‘new’ BSA off the line is named after the Gold Star and, like that icon, it’s a single.
A big single. 652 cubic centimetres in fact, usually enough displacement to create a rumble of vibration that would challenge a solid-mounted S&S V-twin.
Not this time because, (somewhat) upstart motorcycle manufacturers Mahindra may be, but they know their engineering sums. So, unlike “English” big singles past that would be good to achieve a dynamic balance factor of 65 per cent — the ideal is 50 per cent — the big BSA gets a near perfect 52 per cent balance factor. Not only that — and this certainly would wow Brit engineers past — the tolerances in the engine are so tight that the crankshaft reportedly has to be dipped into liquid nitrogen (to shrink the diameter slightly) before being pressed into place. Oil passages are too small to be accurately cast so they are created using a digitally-controlled process called electron beam melting. It is worth mentioning that, as seemingly sophisticated as the new single might be, it is no more powerful than those one-lungers of old, BSA claiming but 45 horsepower and 40.6 pound-feet of torque for the 652-cc engine.
BSA Scrambler Photo by YouTube/@MrDarcytheOlMan
The news of the hour, however, is the new Scrambler model presented this last week at the Britain’s Motorcycle Live bike show. It shares the same engine and basic chassis with the Gold Star but little else. Dual purpose tires replace the street rubber, a custom-like dual exhaust handles the spent gases and, like the dirt bikes it hopes to emulate, the front fender is mounted on high. The dual shocks are retro, but the single disc brakes at each wheel are controlled by a thoroughly modern anti-lock brakes system and part of the modernization of that big engine has been the addition of electronic fuel injection (though the throttle body is seemingly disguised as the air cleaner).
One thing that hasn’t changed from the BSA of old, however, is that the Scrambler has no definite timeline for production and there’s been no mention of how much it will cost in North America, if and when it comes across the pond. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Keyword: BSA Scrambler revealed at Britain’s Motorcycle Live