The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire PREVIEW - 1956 Tilbrook prototype

To see some rare Australian-made motorcycles, don’t miss ‘The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire,’ which opens at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) on 28 November.

As this exhibition is an Australian first, it made sense to seek Australian motorcycles when sourcing bikes to display, so the curators not only sought out bikes with an Australian history, but bikes that were designed and built locally, too.

The motorcycle featured comes from the post-WWII period when Australian-designed and made bikes were becoming fewer and fewer.

The Tilbrook name is rightly associated with sidecars, but Rex Tilbrook also sought to build an all-Australian motorcycle. The first example rolled out of Tilbrook’s Adelaide factory in 1947, with commuter and competition bikes following. Most were powered by Villiers singles (in 125cc and 197cc capacity) and identified by oversized fuel tanks to cover the distances typically travelled in Australia.

While Tilbrook’s racing bikes were successful, production of the roadgoing models never reached the heights Rex dreamed of, with only around 55 built in total. 

The bike in The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire is the very last Tilbrook built, differing from its predecessors with its bathtub-style fairing and a conventional twin-shock swingarm instead of the ‘underslung’ cantilever suspension of previous models.

The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire opens on 28 November, 2020 and runs to 26 April, 2021. To purchase tickets, go to: qagoma.qtix.com.au

For more information, exhibition updates and details on GOMA’s COVID-SAFE plan, go to:qagoma.qld.gov.au

Source: Dennis Martin Collection
Photo: Brayden Mann