From the Financial Times:
"As motorcycle launches go, this one was far from ordinary: the champagne was pink, the canapés were exquisite, the host wore black tie and the location could certainly be described as enlightening (an antique chandelier shop in Chelsea's King's Road). I'd like to say it was all somewhat superior, but it was actually more than that - it was all rather Brough Superior.
During the early 1900s, George Brough started working in his father's car and motorcycle business, but found that Pater's standards just weren't hight enough. so he left to set up his own company, wheeling the first Brough Superior out of his Nottingham workshop in 1919.
By the time Brough had introduced his SS100 model in 1924 (each one tested by the proprietor at 100mph) and the Alpine Grand Sports for hard-riding tourists, the Brough Superior legend was established and had Lawrence of Arabia as its most famous patron - he bought his first in 1922 and called it Boanerges, following with six others named George II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII. He died on the George VII in May 1935 while awaiting delivery of the eighth, after he swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles and then crashed.
Lawrence and writer George Bernard Shaw were among several big names drawn to Broughs for their exceptional fit and finish, their relative exclusivity, and no doubt, their reassuring high price tags. Brough fans enjoy quoting the fact that, at around £150, an SS80 cost more than a small house in 1923.
Such attributes have made original models highly sought-after; Bonhams sold two bikes in 2008 for £166,500 (a world record for a UK motorcycle) and £151,100 respectively - which is why Upham's decision to make and sell brand-new Brough Supriors that look exactly like those of old is attracting global interest.
He has read the market well. During the past five years he has sold 46 original examples from BoA (British Only Austria), the thriving classic motorcycle business that he runs from a substantial farmhouse in the small Austrian town of Pettenbach, supplying rare machines and parts to all corners of the globe.
However, Upham will only say that there are Brough Superior original on the market for between £250,000 to £1m. (Lawrence of Arabis's 'death bike', incidentally - which was privately owned and shown at London's Imperial War Museum in 2006 - could be worth up to £1m, although its owner turned down an offer of $2.5m in 1997).Upham, 53, set up his first motorcycle shop in Somerset in 1977, having left his Hampshire boarding school, Red Rice, to attend agricultural college where he spent most of his time 'learning to weld'. He had harboured a desire to reinstate Brough since buying his first example as a wreck, aged 19, but it was not until the trademark, name, and intellectual rights (for the UK, EU, and Japan) appeared in a Bonhams sale catalogue in 2007 that his dream became a possibility.
In the event, the lot was withdrawn, and Upham entered int negotiations to buy it privately. He finalised the deal in 2008 and spent the following year working on a trio of prototypes with the look, sound and performance of the original but built using 21st-century materials and engineering that would have been beyond the wildest dreams of the nit-picking George Brough.
The modern-day Brough contains few English-made components simply becuase Upham has some of the best engineering facilities in the world on his doorstep some casts will come from a workshop just an hour from home that produces parts for Lamborghini and Audi; engine crankcases will be made across the border in Germany; and the frames have been designed and stress-tested at Austria's Leoben University to ensure thy are of a higher specification than the less-then-perfect originals.
Upham's project quickly came to the attention of an American road-building tycoon who offered to sponsor him to appear with two prototypes at 2009's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, the presigious classic car show that is visited by some of the world's wealthiest petrolheads. Among those attneding was television host and motorcycle nut Jay Leno who said the new Broughs were 'the best thing he'd ever seen at the event'. The owner of six originals, Leno was at first convinced that the replicas were immaculately restored examples from the 1920s and had one of them removed from its stand so that he could be filmed riding it for his car-and-motorcycle themed website (www.jaylenosgarage.com).
"To see a brand-new one [Brough Superior] was stunning", Leno said afterwards. "Everything was just as it would have been in 1925. To be able to thrash is as you would a new motorcycle back in the day was pretty amazing. It was a real thrill. During the war people put them away in their sheds an covered them with straw to save them from being taken for scrap for the war effort, because they were just so valuable."
Upham has so far completed new version of the Alpine Grand Sports tourer and the legendary Pendine racing model, so named after taking first and second place at the 1928 Pendine one-mile sprint race. Only one machine has been sold - to the supportive American highway builder whose private mechanic is currently engaged in long-term tests of the machine at La Rochelle, France.
It may sound like an eccentric way to do business, but Upham is not taking the potential of Brough Superior lightly. The motorcycles will remain core, but he has made sure that the name can be licensed for use on any number of products. "I would like Brough Superior to be a household name. I have registered it in Europe for everything from beers and wines to jewellery, jackets and shaving foam, and I'm looking for merchansdising partners. That way we can create our own capital to keep building motorcycles without borrowing money", says Upham.
Brough Superior champagne, anyone?"
