THE BROUGH SUPERIOR LAWRENCE IS A BIKE THAT COSTS AU$115,000. HERE IS WHAT YOU GET FOR THAT KINDA MONEY

Images by Nick Edards/Half Light Photographic

Brough Superior is a legendary marque. People speak of it in hushed and reverent tones. It was, after all, the first bike to do 160km/h. Born of one man’s passionate obsession, it is now in the hands of the French.

You’ve heard about Brough Superiors, right?

You might recall Colonel TE Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) lost his life riding one of his Brough Superiors – an SS100 he’d named Boanerges (Son of Rage), which was number seven of the eight he owned.

The Brough Superior has been called the “most romantic motorcycle in the world”, the “Rolls-Royce of motorcycles”, and the “world’s finest machine” – all of which may have once been somewhat accurate.

But that “once” was between 1919 and 1940, when George Brough built just 3048 of them, and sold them to the wealthy and self-indulgent. The selling point was the craftsmanship, performance, and the fact that George would tailor the finished bike to the rider.

The company ceased making bikes in 1940 and turned its attention to making cranks for the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. England was at war, and needed Spitfires far more than it needed rich people belting around country lanes at 100-miles-per-hour on bikes that cost a year’s wage and frightening the villagers. When the war ended, the company was unable to source parts of a suitable quality, folded and passed into legend.

In 2008, the brand was bought by Mark Upham. Mark kinda sat on his hands for a while, wondering what he was to do with this now almost mythical brand.

Then in 2013, he approached Thierry Henriette, CEO of the French design company, Boxer Design, and asked Thierry to create a new Brough Superior.

Three months later, an SS100 prototype was unveiled at EICMA in Milan – which, by any measure, is a staggering achievement given the time-frame.

Serial production began in 2016, and Thierry is now the owner of Bough Superior, persisting in the marque’s original ethos of innovation, design excellence, and the use of superb materials in construction.

And here was I in 2023, at Pie In The Sky on the Old Pacific Highway at nine in the morning, watching a new Brough Superior Lawrence being unloaded from the back of a van for me to ride.

It felt like quite the occasion, and as it was rolled backwards out of the van, I will admit to being rather awestruck by its…well, alienness.

This is a bike that would cost you some $115,000 to buy. There is no “press fleet”. Brough Superior does not feel the need to hand its bikes out to be reviewed by the largely inane and utterly worthless members of the Australian motorcycle media. And I do not blame it. No one would care what a chimp thought while it was drinking a Remy Martin Louis XIII brandy.

The bike being wheeled out of the van really was a sight to behold. It’s not so much a bike as it is a statement. It cannot be compared to any other bike, since it is unlike any other bike.

And this was the Brough Superior Lawrence, created to pay homage to one of the world’s most fascinating historical characters. The otherworldly shape of the bike was inspired by a dagger called the “jambiya”.

Lawrence was gifted this Bedouin dagger after his amazing victory at Aqaba on the 6^th of July, 1917.

Sherif Nasir and Auda abu Tayir, and their small force, under the guidance of Lawrence, defeated the Ottoman Turks at this important Red Sea port.

If you’ve seen the film, Lawrence of Arabia, with Peter O’Toole in the starring role, you would have seen a condensed and romanticised version of the fight. They skipped over the bit where Lawrence accidentally shot his camel in the head and was nearly killed in the action. But he was awarded the ceremonial jambiya for his efforts.

That certainly explains why the bike looked so different to other Broughs and other motorcycles.

It was also far smaller…well, more compact than I’d imagined, though it does have a lengthy 1540mm wheelbase. The front-end is a Fior concept, which is kinda like a Hossack, and Boxer designs has worked closely with the brilliant racing-engineer, Claude Fior, almost since its inception.

Claude tested a similar front-end in the 90s which underwent MotoGP testing with the Yamaha Factory Team. This front-end is on all the Brough Superior models, and the factory states it is enamoured of the handling benefits it offers – no dive under brakes and stability at speed and in corners – and as a design element, the factory preferred it over state-of-the-art telescopic forks. It is certainly a point of difference, and the craftsmanship is very evident.

I threw a leg over it, and was immediately struck by how light it felt. This is another Brough element. It’s freakishly light. All its bikes are. The entire 88-degree V-twin engine weighs a mere 70kg. The wet weight of the whole bike is 198kg. And the seat height is quite low.

But you do sit on top of the bike rather than in it. Everything is underneath you rather than in front of you. And the angle of the handlebars is tiller-like. I figured this might also be a design throwback to the past, when tiller ’bars were on every two-wheeled contraption made (including bicycles), as if the designers were taking their cue from ploughs.

Everywhere I looked was stunning carbon-fibre, and high-end aluminium machined with a watchmaker’s precision. You could honestly spend hours looking at the details, angles, and CNC-kissed alloy, and still not see it all. It is as much an engineering artwork as it is a motorcycle – and probably more so.

But it was not all jaw-dropping. The switchblocks were rather underwhelming. They were simple aluminium jobbies – a few small buttons, ie. kill-switch, blinkers a la Harley (left on the left ’bar, right on the right ’bar) and high beam. There are no engine maps needing buttons, so it’s all minimalism. But the switchblocks looked like afterthoughts rather than integral parts of a hyper-expensive motorcycle. The same can be said of the mirrors. I expected special mirrors, machined and designed and clad with space-age blue-tinted NASA-sourced glass. I got very basic mirrors instead. I also noticed the lacquer on the enamel that coated the alloy handlebars was showing slight signs of degradation – or maybe it was just a one-off thing with this particular bike.

And then there was the dash. A largish round analogue dial with very small numbers, that sat fairly flat, forward of the handlebars and stared at the sky. It could be adjusted, but any effort to do that caused it to flop forward or back. Which was altogether displeasing.

All that aside, I was very keen to ride it, as you can imagine. I had been allotted a few hours, since Brough does not hand its bikes out for weeks at a time for reviewing, and I needed to get some kind of idea of what was what here.

I must re-iterate that this is so NOT the kind of bike you strap a bag to, and set off to Wilcannia. Actually, it would very much be the kind of bike I would do that with, but I am so not the target demographic the Brough is aimed at.

I couldn’t help thinking this is not the kind of bike a motorcyclist like me would by. But of course I would buy it if I had the money – and ride it to Wilcannia, and lots of other places too.

But I could not also think of a motorcyclist I knew (and I know a lot of them), who would buy it. Though I do know a few wealthy collectors of exotic bikes that certainly would. And I guess that’s the mindset one has to adopt when assessing it.

But when it started, all I could think of was how desperately strangled and muffled it sounded at idle. It gives the impression that when it fires up, thunder would boom, avalanches would ensue, and women would give birth prematurely. But ADRs are ADRs, right? And I have no doubt the factory would make sure you did not leave the showroom without a set of proper pipes in the boot of your Aston Martin.

And then off I went.

The lack of weight was immediately obvious, which is great, because the specifications of the engine are not jaw-dropping. That gorgeous-looking sculpture of a twin makes 102 horses and 87Nm of torque. But, and this is a big but – there is a version called the AMB 001 Pro, that makes 225 horses and 160Nm, thanks to the turbocharger attached to it.

The factory states these base specs will send the Lawrence to a top-speed of 225km/h. I got it to 170, and didn’t feel there was much more there. It pulled reasonably well when I jammed the throttle open, and it’s fueled perfectly, but it did not take my breath away.

Of course, I would have tried some more, but remember where I am. Making top-speed runs across the Brooklyn Bridge or down the freeway on a $115,000 bike is not something the Highway Patrol is programmed to appreciate.

If I am ever afforded the opportunity to ride another Brough for more than a few hours, then rest assured we shall certainly explore the factory’s claims.

The front-end is superb. One of the very best I have ever experienced. It soaked up bumps at a level Öhlins would be proud of. The rear-suspension, by comparison, was harsh, but then it is adjustable and I am sure the factory would have it set for you if you bought one. As I rode it, the suspension seemed at odds with itself.

It dealt with the Old Road twisties well, though I felt it’s long wheelbase and fat rear-tyre was compromising it a little – which made it feel a little understeery when you applied yourself to the corner. It’s gloriously light and should be very agile, but it’s fighting that wheelbase and fat tyre.

But to be honest, I was not pushing all that hard. The point was not to see if I could grind bits of it off. No-one would have been impressed by that. And any potential owners would certainly not ride it as hard as I did that day.

I just wanted to get a real sense of the bike as a complete package, and answer a few questions that had been niggling at me when I was first offered a ride.

Was it a viable motorcycle?

Yes, it was. It was certainly more about design, craftsmanship, build-quality, and sheer exotic appeal, than it was about performance and high-speed anything. But surely a potential owner would understand that.

Like I said, it’s not the kind of bike you strap some bags to and head off for a week on the road. People who buy these bikes do not do that. So why build them a bike that would be happy in that sphere?

People who buy these bikes want the wow factor they offer. They want to park it inside their mansion and have their mates come over and admire it. And talk about it and the marque. And Lawrence of Arabia, whose name and reputation is irrevocably attached to the Brough Superior brand. And these are marvelous conversations by people who breathe a rarer air than I do. You doubt that? Consider the top-of-the-line Brough Superiors, the AMB 001 and the AMB 001 Pro, will need you to bring in excess of $250,000 with you if you aspire to ownership.

I will never ride these. No-one I know will ever ride one either.

But I am seriously overjoyed that such bikes even exist. They must exist for motorcycling to have any meaning. Motorcycling is not a rational or reasonable thing to do. There’s a reason it’s populated by fearsome madmen, crazed zealots, and red-eyed fanatics.

This is Brough Superior’s entire raison d’être. And it’s not flawless and it’s not perfect, and it’s not about high-speed and awesome cornering. I get that.

But it is nonetheless utterly and completely magnificent.

You should check out the website, it’s almost porn-like…

www.broughsuperioraustralia.com.au/