Sun Beam S8 

Sun Beam S8 

Specs Mentioned 

Make/ Model – Sunbeam S8 (1953) 

Engine – 487cc, tandem vertical twin-cylinder, single carburetor, air-cooled, 4-stroke, overhead camshaft

Power – 24bhp (18Kw) @ 6000rpm

Top speed – 85mph

This classic beauty looks as good today as the moment it rolled out of the factory floor in 1954.  Inspired by the BMW motorcycles of the second world war, this Vintage Sunbeam Motorcycle exudes class and muscle from tire to tire.  The Sunbeam bicycle company was founded by John Marston, who was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, UK in 1836. The name Sunbeam was suggested to him by his wife Ellen. 

The British motorcycle, designed by Erling Poppe with styling loosely based on the BMW R75 designs that were acquired as war reparations by BSA (full rights to the Sunbeam brand had been acquired from AMC in 1943). Built in Redditch, the unusual engine layout was similar to that of a car. The engine was a longitudinally mounted inline vertical OHC 500 cc twin based on an experimental 1932 BSA design (the Line-Ahead-Twin – LAT) with coil ignition and wet sump lubrication which, through a dry clutch, drove a shaft drive to the rear wheel. The inline engine made this technologically feasible—horizontally-opposed (“flat”) twin engines on BMW motorcycles had already used shaft drives following the system employed by the four-cylinder Nimbus since 1918. 

This historic stunner is a true head turner, a bike that will have every motorhead waving you to stop just to get a longer look.  The featured EY-8346 first entered Ceylon in the early 1950s and after over 30 years, it was later discovered in a Colombo suburb and restored by Ronnie Mantri, a Malaysian national who worked for Prima Ceylon Ltd. It found its current home in 2006.