Marston Sunbeam Club & Register
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.................................................. e-mail: paulhutton@btinternet.com website: .................................................. ABOUT THE CLUB Yearly subscription in 2010-11 is £20 (£23 non-UK) plus an initial registration fee of £2 for new members. The subscription year runs from 1st July to 30th June.
Members receive a quarterly, colour journal called 'BEAMING. The club organises the annual Marston Sunbeam Rally in Wolverhampton in July for cycles and motorcycles. It is also looking to initiate regional events in the UK. In partnership with the Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club, the MSC&R organises a weekend Testers' Run in August - a recreation of the factory testers' route from Wolverhampton into mid-Wales and back. The 1995 Testers' Run was filmed and is available as a one hour DVD. It also assists in the organisation of the annual Festival of Black Country Vehicles at the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley. The Marston Wolverhampton Heritage Trust also runs its motorcycles regularly at the Black Country Living Museum. Contact the Museum for details. It's worth joining the club if you are not already a member. Its objective is simply to keep fine old Sunbeams up and running. .................................................. |
MARSTON SUNBEAM CLUB & REGISTER The Marston Sunbeam Club & Register (abbreviated as the MSC&R) is the club for the owners of Sunbeam motorcycles made by John Marston Ltd of Wolverhampton ... and fine credentials it has too. Just as Graham Walker in 1924 established the original 'Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club' whilst employed by John Marston Ltd, the MSC&R too sprang from employees at Marstons. In its case, it was a group of enthusiasts employed by IMI Marston, the successor to John Marston's original company. Whereas, shortly after its inception, the Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club went on to become an all-make club for veteran and vintage machines, the MSC&R is the marque club for owners and enthusiasts of Marston-made Sunbeams. It also welcomes owners of Sunbeam motorcycles and cycles made by Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) of London following its take-over of the Wolverhampton works. During its brief period of ownership of the Sunbeam between 1937-40 a number of AMC machines were assembled using Wolverhampton-made parts - notably the side-valve models - whilst the AMC-designed 'hi cam' Sunbeams are considered to represent the end of the direct Marston lineage. (BSA's acquisition of the Sunbeam name after the Second World War produced a very different motorcycle in the flat twin Sunbeam S7 and S8 models catered for by the well-established Sunbeam Owners' Fellowship.)
▲ PHOTO - Awaiting the start of the Testers' Run from Marstons, August 2003
THE 'MARSTON SUNBEAM REGISTER' BECOMES THE 'CLUB & REGISTER' The Marston Sunbeam Register commenced in 1982 as an informal club run by IMI Marston employees. Many of those involved had fathers, grand-fathers and close friends who had worked on motorcycle production. In July 2010 the Register expanded its role to encompass the activities of a traditional marque club with greater support for owners and riders. Its new name as the MSC&R reflects the changes whilst not losing sight of its origins.
▲ MSC&R poster spreading the news about the expansion of the 'Register' to a more formal 'Club & Register' (provided by the MSC&R)
Supported by the Marston company, the Register initiated the annual Marston Sunbeam Rally - in its early years at Marston's social club. It also published an annual newsletter, established worldwide contacts to create a database of surviving Sunbeams and gathered together a collection of machines, many restored by the Register's dedicated 'home team'. Much of the collection is now with the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley in the UK where they are regularly run around the museum site. In 2007 the Register celebrated its 25th anniversary - a silver jubilee. It is also relaxed about involvement with Marston's Wolverhampton-made rivals, notably AJS (1903-31) and the subsequent Stevens machines (1934-38). Most Register events seem happy to include these machines. It was always a very civilised rivalry with the 'opposition'.
MSC&R TECHNICAL ADVISERS Members of the MSC&R have access to a panel of technical advisers, a number of whom provide e-mail contacts.
▲ PHOTO - Brian Cowen, Charlie Dodson's 1930 Senior TT 'Beam and winding Welsh roads (from Lumic's DVD of the Testers' Run) Brian Cowen, a third-generation Marston man known for giving Charlie Dodson's 1930 Senior TT machine a good outing on past Testers' Runs, provides technical advice for MSC&R members. If you have any technical queries about your 'Beam, drop Brian, Malcolm or Peter an e-mail. Be prepared for them asking if you are a club member!
▲ PHOTO - Charlie Dodson with the 1930 Senior TT 'Beam (from Lumic's DVD of the Testers' Run)
MARSTON SUNBEAM REGISTER ON FILM!
The film is a good 60 minutes' worth of entertainment for any vintage motorcycle fan as the cameras accompany the modern-day ‘testers’ on the route taken by their 1920s and ‘30s predecessors. Poignantly, many of the riders are IMI Marston employees. The motorcycles sound and look great. The dramatic appearance of the Sunbeams emerging from the famous Paul Street gate at Sunbeamland, Wolverhampton is to be savoured. We then get to follow the riders through the picturesque Shropshire Marches and mid-Wales countryside, enjoying a rider's-eye view of the scenery - literally the view from the motorcycle saddle. You almost feel you are there with them soaking up the bumps on the trusty girder forks. A good array of some 18 Sunbeam and AJS machines - both flat-tank and saddle-tank - are featured. Everything from the most sporting Model 90s to trusty side-valves and combinations. The testers share their thoughts, as well as their enthusiasm for the bikes. They complete over a weekend what to the original testers was a 200-mile journey to be completed during a working day. A DVD version is now available from Lumic or through this website. The cost is £9.00 plus £1.80 packaging and postage (UK). E-mail the web-site for details.
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▲ PHOTO - Marstons and the Sunbeam, still names very much linked together ....................................................... Extracts from the Register Newsletters The Marston Sunbeam Register produced an annual newsletter until 2009, prior to the introduction in March 2010 of the first issue of 'BEAMING. The website is currently compiling a full archive of all 28 newsletters. If you have newsletters from the 1980s or early 1990s I would welcome the chance to arrange for a copy to be made for the archive. Contact:mail@sunbeamsidevalve.com
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Want
to know
what
the folk at the MSC&R get up to? A great insight is the one-hour film of the Register’s 1995 Testers’ Run.
It was filmed and originally released by Lumic of
Kingswinford, UK as a video entitled, 'Classic British Motorbikes: AJS and
Sunbeam - The Testers' Run'. 