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CLUB CONTACTS
Membership Secretary:
Paul Hutton
e-mail:
paulhutton@btinternet.com
website:
www.marston-sunbeam.org
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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.
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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.
- Malcolm Webster - e-mail:
ani.mal61@btinternet.com
- Peter Yates - e-mail:
peter.yates53@blueyonder.co.uk
- Brian Cowen - e-mail: chowcowen@aol.com

▲
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!
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'.
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
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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
Follow the links as entries
are added
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