MXA GOES TO THE 16TH ANNUAL BARBER VINTAGE FESTIVAL

The Barber Museum is a thing of awe.

By Mark Donaldson

Each October brings us to Barber Motorsports Park’s 880-acre facility near Birmingham, Alabama, for the Barber Vintage Festival. The three-day event includes everything motorcycles: vintage racing (road, trials, enduro, motocross), bike shows, swap meet, auction, demo rides, the worlds largest motorcycle museum (over 1600 motorcycles in the collection) and the “Motorcycles by Moonlight” fund raising dinner in the museum, which each year features a motorcycling icon as the Grand Marshal. This year the honoree was AMA Hall of Famer Mary McGee.

If you stand underneath this display, you can almost hear the engines roar.

You may even catch the owner of the facility, Mr. George Barber, dressed the same as his employees, help with the loading of trams and making sure everyone is enjoying their time at his facility. Though we are there mostly for the motocross bikes, it is an opportunity to experience every kind of motorcycles. This is an event to attend. Heavy thunderstorms in the Birmingham area in the days leading up to the event made for some muddy swap meet booths, campgrounds and all the dirt track events. Eventually the weather cleared and despite the conditions, participants came out in near capacity levels to enjoy the sunshine at what has been described as the finest motorsports facility in the world.

Luckily, these six bike aren’t hanging over your head in earthquake country.

For those who believed in Horst Leitner’s genius, the ATK 250/406 was a thing of simplistic beauty. Note the airbox under the gas tank, steel swingarm, singled-side shock and air-cooled Rotax engine. In 1989 many off-road racers didn’t trust water-cooling in the woods.

Never heard of a Gina? The name Gina is derived by the first two letters of Gilera and the last three letters Argentina. The 1972 Gina 175 was a partnership between Gilera and and an Argentina frame builder.

The Gina’s private-labeled engine is made by Gilera and was available in 175 and 250cc versions. It was even imported to the USA by Lantz International in Pennsylvania.

Looking good. A green stripe Honda CR250M.

What is it? It looks like a bomb with handlebars.

Where do you sit?.

Okay, that’s where you sit, but what keeps you there?

Tim Ferry’s 2002 Yamaha YZ426 factory bike with a carbon fiber airbox.

More details on Ferry’s YZ426.

The German-made Sommer 462 is named after Jochen Sommer, and its history is tied-in with Royal Enfield, who tried to market diesel-power motorcycles with little success. Jochen has produced over 200 Sommer 462s.

The Sommer, which is not a vintage bike, but a modern machine, is equipped with a 462cc Hatz 1B-40 diesel engine, which Jochen Sommer modifies to fit in an Indian-made Royal-Enfield chassis. The Hatz Diesel, is an industrial engine and it barely moves the needle on horsepower, but it does make good torque and has a claimed top speed of 105 mph.

The Sommer 462 has a four-speed transmission—with a right-side shifter.


“The Chase” sculpture is on display at the Barber Museum.

Display.

No self-respecting museum is worth its weight in pre-mix without a selection of oddly named Hodakas—like this 100cc Road Toad.

The British-made Cotton Cobra 250 was powered by a Villier 36A engine (fed by a 30mm Amal Monobloc carb). The Armstrong leading link forks made the Cobra very efficient on 1960s motocross tracks.

The Villiers engine on the Cobra 250 is outfitted with a Parkinson Conversion cylinder and head. The squarish cylinder finning helped cooling, while the cylinder’s bore was chrome plated (which was incredibly high tech on the 1963 motocross bike).

The walk around the grounds at Barber Motorsport Park is always interesting.

Custom Honda twin-cylinder dirt tracker powered by a 1967 Honda 305 Scrambler engine.

See you next year.

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