1964 BSA Cyclone competition

My current project is an interesting ebay find. What caught my interest was the A50"B" in the engine ID. This is a '64 BSA A50 twin Cyclone competition - desert racer. I'm not finding much information related to how many of the Cyclone competitions were made and shipped to the US. Mine is fairly early with engine A50.BC.142. '64 twins started with number 101. Trying to determine how many were built and where mine fits in the production time line for this model.

Thanks,

David

Unless I'm mistaken (highly likely) several years of BSA production started with "101". Stupid, but there you go...

illf8ed said:

I'm not finding much information related to how many of the Cyclone competitions were made and shipped to the US. Mine is fairly early with engine A50.BC.142. '64 twins started with number 101. Trying to determine how many were built and where mine fits in the production time line for this model.

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I suggest you contact the VMCC: http://www.vmcc.net/ as they should be able to give you that information for a small fee (for non-VMCC members) : http://www.vmcc.net/services.htm

That sounds like a really interesting project and I'm glad these folks know enough about BSA's to help.
Desert racing had a large effect on sales when I was a kid, and myself and my friends eagerly awaited results in the monthly magazines. I have no idea why we cared who could make it though the Baja 500 when we were snowbound in Maine but we did.
Although I did see a few rare P11s I never actually saw a BSA or Triumph desert race bike other than in magazines.
I wonder if you happened to spot the British gentleman's restoration of a rare BSA 750 in a Classic bike magazine a while back? If you haven't seen that article perhaps I could look it up for you.

1964 BSA Cyclone competition information

L.A.B.

Appreciate the VMCC contact. I just sent them an e-mail with questions.

Regards,

David

The BSA 750 rebuild is in the September 2008 issue of Classic Bike if you are interested.

info on '64 BSA Cyclone

Sent my questions to VMCC on Dec 24, so far no response.

Re: info on '64 BSA Cyclone

illf8ed said:

Sent my questions to VMCC on Dec 24, so far no response.

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That's not surprising really, as many places in the UK shut down for about two weeks over Christmas and the New Year, so many people wouldn't have gone back to work until Monday 5th January (as I did).
I suggest you try again if you haven't heard anything in a week or so?

VMCC response

Got an response from the "Library" at VMCC. Looks like this bike has spent all it's life in California - 45 years! Hap Alzina was the west coast BSA distributor in Oakland, Ca. That's roughly 40 miles from my house.

Your engine number is the original to the frame. It was despatched to Hap Alzina USA 3 Feb 1964. The A50B frames started with 101 so yours is the 471st frame but not all were cyclones. The records do not appear to distinguish between Cyclones and Cyclone competitions. I am afraid I do not have the time to go through and count how may of the approx 3000 with 1964 A50B frames were cyclones but up to 572 inc there are 50 machines which have engine prefixes of A50 2C or A50 Cyclone. This is just for the record book the engine would be stamped A50B or A50BC as yours is. There may be more as the records are handwritten and hard to read, a poorly written 2 or C or l look very similar.