British Bike Builders

From Edwardian back-street workshops to the scorched deserts of North Africa, from board-track glory to Hollywood cool, three British names rewrote the rules of motor-cycling-and then paid the price of empire. British Bike Builders is the first fully fact-driven narrative to braid Triumph, BSA, and Norton into a single, sweeping story. Drawing on factory ledgers, patent filings, race-day lap charts and union minutes, it shows how inspired metallurgy, ruthless competition, and bold export gambits carried British twins and singles to every corner of the globe. Yet the same forces that forged a legend also sowed collapse. Wartime overreach, badge-engineering bloat, Japanese precision and industrial unrest pushed assembly lines into silence-only for the marques to roar back through custom culture, vintage grids and modern revivals. Each chapter stands alone as a miniature history; together they chart a century-long rise, fall and renaissance whose echoes still power today's retro classics and tomorrow's electric prototypes.