48th ABR Highlight – BSA A10 Café Racer

For its 48th edition, the All British Rally, presented by the BSA Motorcycle Owners’ Association, welcomed more than 800 entries - believed to be a record in the event’s history. That number was in spite of fuel price hikes caused by the US-Iran war and predictions of poor weather for the 24-26 April weekend of the event.

There were plenty of highlights at this year’s ABR, not least of which was the first official public appearance of the all-new BSA range in Australia – Gold Star 650, Scrambler 650 and Bantam 350 – ahead of their local release later this year. If older BSAs were more your fancy, there was an abundance of them, too, both at the Newstead Racecourse that’s the hub for the ABR, and at the street display in Maldon where the BSA featured here – a C1960 A10 Golden Flash - was photographed.

Launched for 1950, the A10 Golden Flash was a 650 (officially 646cc) parallel twin that drew upon a lot from the 500cc A7 Star Twin that had already been developed. Seen as BSA’s answer to Triumph’s 650cc 6T Thunderbird, the Golden Flash never really matched the Triumph for outright pace, but was still fast, and could be made even faster with the period speed equipment available.

Pre-unit construction made the A10 look increasingly old fashioned, and it would eventually be replaced with the unit construction A65 Star in 1963.

The swingarm rear on the bike featured points to it being from the latter half of the 1950s, but the café racer features are all non-standard additions. These includes the hooded headlight shell, one-piece seat with rear bump stop, custom exhaust and oversized front brake. Clip-on handlebars are usual fare for a café racer, but this bike has a one-piece ’bar, turned down to mimic clip-ons.

Sports exhausts, fork gaiters, an oil cooler, modern gauges in a custom bracket, and partially open primary cover were other notable features on this bike.

For JUST BIKES’ report on the 48th All British Rally, click HERE.