Colin Seeley at the Barber Vintage Festival

Reader Contribution by The Motorcycle Classics Staff
Published on August 7, 2018
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Barry Schanberger took top honors for his 1968 Norton Fastback at last year’s Motorcycle Classics Vintage Bike Show at Barber.

The 14th Annual Barber Vintage Festival, the largest vintage motorcycle event in North America and attended by 70,000-plus enthusiasts in 2017, happens Oct. 5-7, 2018, at Barber Motorsports Park outside Birmingham, Alabama, with famed British builder Colin Seeley this year’s Grand Marshal. A successful AJS dealer, Seeley raced sidecars in the late ’50s and early ’60s before moving into frame building. A huge fan of then-popular British singles, he bought all the tooling and spares for the overhead cam Matchless 350cc and 500cc singles (and the Norton Manx; he later sold those rights) after AMC closed its race shops in 1963. He started producing complete bikes in 1966, and his Seeley specials represented the very best in handling and were raced at tracks across the U.K., Europe and the U.S. He later produced frames to house Honda’s CB750 Four.

Seeley will also be guest of honor at the Barber Museum’s Friday night Motorcycles by Moonlight fundraiser, and we’re anticipating his presence at the Motorcycle Classics tent during our Saturday Vintage Bike Show, which this year puts the spotlight on Triumph and BSA triples, with triples of all makes encouraged to join us. We’ll award trophies in five categories, plus special awards for Best Triple and Editors’ Choice. Barber restoration expert and former Norton employee Brian Slark will join us for judging.

This year’s Motorcycle Classics technical seminars will be led by vintage Japanese motorcycle electrical specialist Rick Shaw from Rick’s Motorsports Electrics, explaining what you need to know about vintage Japanese charging systems and how to improve them, and Race Tech Suspension’s vintage suspension guru Matt Wiley, who will discuss the ins and outs of vintage motorcycle suspensions and how to improve them.

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