1953 Sunbeam S8, 489cc. Registration number SSL 421 (non tra...

Hammer

£3,800

1953 Sunbeam S8, 489cc. Registration number SSL 421 (non tranferrable). Frame number S7 5792. Engine number S8 10297.
A wartime design by Erling Poppe, the Sunbeam inline twin was introduced by BSA, owners of Sunbeam Cycles Limited, in 1947, loosely based on the BMW R75 designs that were acquired as war reparations by BSA). Built in Redditch, the unusual engine layout was similar to that of a car, being 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 Nimbus in 1918.
A luxury tourer, it was of advanced specification. The clutch housing and four-speed gearbox bolted directly to the back of the engine, which was rubber mounted in the duplex loop frame, an innovation that required a flexible joint in the exhaust system ahead of the silencer. The first S7 version was equipped with balloon tyres, a feature not carried over to the deliberately more conventional and also lighter and cheaper, S8 introduced in 1949. The front fork and 7" brake were now standard BSA components and there were numerous other changes made in the interests of rationalisation. Never as popular as BSA's more performance orientated models, the gentlemanly S7 and S8 remained in production until 1957.
SSL would appear to have been recommissioned in March 1991 when it was re registered with DVLA, By 2001 it was with David Edsar and our vendors father purchased it in 2003, MOT's in 2000 show a mileage of 3,590, in 2002 at 3905, 2005 at 3,906. Today it shows the same 3,906.
Having been stored in a dry garage for the last 15 years it will require recommissioning before use on the road.
Sold with the V5C and three old MOT's, please note DVLA has the frame and engine recorded as 57 and 58 not S7 and S8.