The rarest of the rare enter the Banbury Run

Hundreds of pre-1931 motorcycles, sidecars and three-wheelers gathered at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon on Sunday, June 18 for the annual running of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club’s (VMCC) Banbury Run.

Setting off from the museum, riders took one of several, circular routes, some less punishing than others, through the Warwickshire and Oxfordshire countryside, returning to Gaydon to showcase their magnificent machines.

The bikes, of course, were the star of the show but it was the stories behind the bikes that add a level panache that pure engineering cannot reach.

Making his first appearance at the Banbury Run was Craig Exley form Hastings who had brought his Rover 350 which he had finally acquired after years of searching and negotiations to buy with the former owner.

Craig said: “It’s the last motorcycle Rover ever made, in 1925, before they just concentrated on cars. It was quite unique. It has an overhead valve, it’s got a unit construction engine. It had built in oil pump, it was quite different to the normal stuff at the time, which were mainly side valve.

“It’s quite light and sporty, and it had a sports option, so it was kind of like the R6 of its day. You could have it with an alloy piston and a sports carb, which this one has. There’s probably only about six on the planet. It took me 15 years to find one.”

Craig was inspired to own a Rover 350 by memories of his grandfather’s machine but discovered after some research that his Rover 350 had been destroyed as part of the war effort.

While the River 350 may have been just one of half a dozen known to exist the three-wheeled Slinger Douglas is even rarer and was brought to the run by friends Anthony Howe-Davies and Shaun Croft who had travelled from London.

Shaun said: “It’s called the Slinger because it’s made by an electrical engineer named W. Slinger who lived in Settle in Yorkshire.

“He was going to make thousands of them, but it took him so long to work out the front suspension and front travel he gave up after he made the one. That’s the only in existence.”

Anthony added: “It’s a very early De Dion engine in it and it’s water cooled, with its radiator wrapped around the cylinder head. The interesting party piece with it is you can’t get it into the van. It can take you 10 minutes because you can’t go backwards with it. We will give you a tenner if you can reverse it a straight line.”

He added: “It’s quite a thing. It drives remarkably well on the roads. It’s a bit heavy at the front, as you’d imagine, but it will absolutely cruise up the hills. We’ll be towing some of the others up.” 

Also in attendance were Henry Cole and Allen Millyard who were to ride two bikes provided by the VMCC, with Millyard making his first Banbury Run while Cole returns after a previous appearance where he was a sidecar passenger after breaking his arm and shoulder in an accident.

He told the crowd: “The rider also had a broken leg, so between us we made up one complete human with a few spare parts.”

Recently appointed Banbury Mayor Cllr Fiaz Ahmed was also on hand and had been inspired to ride by the event. He told MCN: “I saw a group of bikers come through Banbury about three months ago and they stopped at the Costa, there were about seven or eight of them. 

“They had the beast bikes, you know, like those big, huge bikes but when the guy got off, he was about 65 years old, and had a bypass or something and he said: ‘if I can do it, what’s stopping you?’

“I’m looking forward to getting my lessons and after today I’m definitely going to go ahead with it.”