When I see a ‘bathtub’ motorcycle – generally a Triumph as they’re by far the most common – the thing I ask myself, every time, is ‘why?’ I’m not debating whether the style looks good or not (actually, I happen to quite like it as it’s of its period), anything like that, but I just have never been able to quite understand it.
The thinking, one assumes, was to keep road muck away from the rider but, really, how much detritus gets flung towards the rider from the rear wheel? None, I’d say.
Was it purely an aesthetic thing in that case? People like to say it was to do with making the motorcycle look more modern, more scooter-ish, whatever. But if so, why wasn’t the engine covered up? Surely that was the most mechanical bit of the whole job? At least when, for example, Vincent went all-in with its ill-fated Black Prince and Black Knight efforts, the engine was hidden from view too. Likewise, the Velocette LE has its mechanical bits out of the way (and was even water-cooled, to boot) as does the Ariel Leader, and even further back so did the Ascot-Pullin, for example, but the Triumphs and Nortons have their engines still on display. So what is actually the point of the rear wheel enclosure?
Spats on cars had their day in the early post second world war period, and it can’t be denied that an XK120 Jag equipped thus is possessed of a certain type of elegance different to the cars supplied sans enclosure, but one doesn’t get the sense
