1966 Velocette Thruxton Café Racer At Auction | Current Museum Piece

July 20, 2016

1966 Velocette Thruxton Café Racer No Reserve Auction

For café racer enthusiasts looking to pick up an authentic piece of history, H&H Classics will be auctioning a 1966 Velocette Thruxton at the Donington Park Auction on July 28, 2016. “It is super rare to find a bike in this condition, which is not even on the Velocette Owners Club register,” according to Mark Bryan, Head of Motorcycles at H&H Classics. “This motorcycle is a very real and rare discovery.”

When it was new, the 1966 Velocette Thruxton was a coveted café racer straight from the factory. Based on the highly successful Velocette Venom, the Thruxton had a better flowing cylinder head with larger valves and a downdraft intake track. Good for over 40 horsepower from the big air-cooled 500cc OHV pushrod thumper—perfectly square at 86mm x 86mm—the Thruxton used a close-ratio four-speed gearbox to great success. Maximum power came at 6200 rpm.

With Velocette Thruxtons going 1-2 in the first running of the Production TT at the 1967 Isle of Man meeting, the bike established its competition bona fides. An earlier win in a 500-mile endurance race proved that the Velocette Thruxton was both a competitive racer and a reliable machine.

Suspension on the 1966 Velocette Thruxton comes from traditional forks with damping in both directions (not a given at the time), as well as twin damped shocks with adjustable top mounting points. Period-appropriate 19-inch wheels are used at both ends of the 390-pound (dry) Thruxton, and the top speed was 110 mph. Twin leading shoe drums slowed the front wheel, with a single leading shoe drum in the back.

Currently on display a the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, England, the 1966 Velocette Thruxton is being auctioned with no reserve, and an expectation of a selling price of £12,000 (about $16,000) or less. Hagerty values a concours 1966 Velocette Thruxton at $30,00, and a fair condition example at $15,000. Just over 1100 examples were built by Velocette.

Photography courtesy of H&H Classics