[...snip!] The odd thing is that folk are going for authenticity, they should slaver olive drab on their pristine C5's with a 2 inch brush, like they did back in the day. It is the idealised concours finish on 'military' bikes that makes me toss my tater tots.
What you got with my 2005 so-called "Military," pretty much right off the showroom floor, is what one might semi-conceivably have looked like a few years
AFTER the thing had been sold off as War Office surplus and proudly owned for a time by some schlump just like me happy to have
any motorized personal transport he could afford. He'd have been overjoyed to have it. After all, Pa worked like a dog his whole life and never had more than a bicycle. No longer concerned with German snipers, our Schlump would naturally have shined and tarted her up a bit to taste for civvie life, within reason. So, maybe a nice shiney new silencer and some other chromed bits from the knackers yard as these presented themselves to replace the dull, dented and rusty wartime gear. He might have considered having a mate paint it "proper", but first he'd have buffed up that green just as shiney as he could get it, decided it looked just fine with a bit of wax after all, and got the new wife a nice new electric kettle instead. As well as getting him to work, it would have been their little magic carpet for day jaunts into the countryside, holidays on the coast, or even over to the Continent insofar as tight currency export restrictions then allowed. When the kids started coming, maybe they'd eventually slap a sidecar onto it, but soon enough they'd be looking to get a nice comfy and practical Austin A4, Morris Minor or Triumph Herald sedan. After all, "climate", don't you know. It might then have spent some time in the garden shed, been hauled out now and again for a quick snort, until one day she wouldn't start, and so there she sat and sat and sat some more until the neighbor's kid got it for some yardwork and painting, and the whole circle of life began spinning anew with a fresh battery and maybe some new rubber, and then off to the Ace Cafe.
I know mine's nothing like the actual real deal. For that
check out this marvelous tribute, but what I don't get from that new "Pigasus" is
any sense at all that such a backstory as I've just spun might even be remotely
plausible. It utterly lacks verisimilitude. It simply LOOKS like a modern bike done up in some half-baked faux-retro color scheme, kinda like a Hyundai painted up like that General Lee from the
Dukes of Hazzard. It just looks fake, even from across the parking lot. Better to embrace that C5 model on it's own real terms, as a more modern and reliable successor to the old lineage, I'd say. But do as you like. I'll still ride with you.
Oh, and for the benefit of some of our forum members beyond the seas, perhaps I should clarify that when our man Blairio writes, "toss my tater tots," he is describing a nauseous reaction sufficient for him to expel deep-fried minced potato balls often served here as a side dish in school or other institutional meals. A near equivalent, if less aggressively alliterative, British phrase might be, "to chunder one's mushy peas."
Topic: RE Classic 500 Pegasus Edition! (Read 13197 times)