E95 AJS Porcupine up for sale
Added on Friday, May 27th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
E95 AJS Porcupine up for sale
One of only four E95 AJS Porcupine race bikes is to go on sale later this year in California.
The rare machine is being sold by the National Motorcycle Museum and will appear in Bonhams’ August automotive auction in Carmel, California, on the 18th of the month.
Most Porcupines – so-called because of the pointed cooling fins projecting from the top of the horizontal parallel twin engine – were destroyed by the factory, the fate of many race bikes to keep their technology out of unauthorised hands, but the E95 versions all survive.
The Porcupine was the result of a rethink at AJS after the factory’s powerful but heavy pre-war supercharged V-four proved too bulky and difficult to handle. The new twin was originally designed to be supercharged but forced induction was banned from grand prix racing by the FIM in 1946, so AJS simply upped the compression ratio and completed the design without. The first version, the E90, suffered various problems but still won the first ever motorcycle grand prix world championship in 1949 with British rider Les Graham on board, although it was a very close battle with Gilera’s Nello Pagani. The Italian scored more points in the season but the championship was decided on the best three results, and Graham’s two wins and a second beat Pagani’s two wins and a third.
The E95 appeared in 1952 with its engine tilted up by 45 degrees and a new frame to accommodate it, as well as various changes made to improve reliability, which hadn’t been good. It was still dogged by magneto shaft failures though.
The bike evolved and showed plenty of promise, but AJS withdrew from grands prix in 1954 and that was never realised.
The last Porcupine sale was in 2000, when it went for £157,700 (then US$258,500), but Bonhams is estimating £460,000 (US$750,000) for this latest sale, which will make it the most expensive motorcycle ever sold.
No one from the National Motorcycle Museum was available for comment at the time of writing, but I’ll be pursuing this angle to discover the reason for the sale.
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