I don’t know a lot about this one. It’s something that I came across on the Federation of Sidecar Clubs’ stand at the BMF Show in Peterborough a couple of years ago.
It’s badged as an Austel and appears to have a Hedingham or modified Squire sidecar attached (although I am prepared to be corrected on this point).
From the little information available online, it appears that Austel produced a custom motorcycle designed for sidecar operation with components more often found in cars, such as the 1300cc Leyland engine with a four speed manual gearbox with reverse gear, car tires and brakes, car size drive couplings, and so forth. Leading link forks were fitted as standard.
It was also apparently available in kit form.
It was built by an engineer called Chriss Castel from Maidenhead hence the name Austel a cross of Austin and Castel
ReplyDeleteFor more info contact swoopdave@gmail.com
I remember these from when they had a stall at a kit car show. The one I saw was a solo bike and had the auto gearbox. I seem to remember talking to them and they mentioned that they were working on a manual version at the time. They had two models, one was an "off the peg" bike, supplied ready to go and the other was a kit bike, build it yourself... One was called "Austel" and the other, "Austeq", can't remember which was which though.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. Good to know.
ReplyDeleteHere's a nice picture of one https://db.tt/xONUgf9y
ReplyDelete