Rich – Short story, in the late 50’s/ early 60’s my dad had a business making a fibreglass sidecar of his own design called a Clarendon and after a 25year search I found one !! This was duly restored to as near as original spec as possible but what to attach it too? I decided to do a combination of my dads work and mine, so a mildly customised/aged XS650 was born.
The bike has the rear subframe lowered & shortened otherwise the frame is standard, wire wheels were fitted to get an older look. A dummy oil tank holds all the electrics and the copper tube ‘oil lines’ hide the wiring. All the switchgear has been converted to levers connected to relays, the bar-end ones operate the horn & main/dip beam and the ‘choke’ lever turns the lights on/off.
With a lot of help from people on ‘Britchopper’ (a custom bike forum) the bike also got a one off wooden headlight, a wood number plate holder and a leather seat.
Have now upgraded the frontend to a set of leading links, with much improved handling. Rich
