Brough Superior

Brough Superior (/ˈbrʌf/ BRUF) motorcycles, sidecars, and motor cars were made by George Brough in his Brough Superior works on Haydn Road in Nottingham, England, from 1919 to 1940. The motorcycles were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles" by H. D. Teague of The Motor Cycle newspaper. Approximately 3048 motorcycles (19 models) were made in the 21 years of production; around a third of that production still exists. T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") owned eight of these motorcycles and died from injuries sustained when he crashed number seven, the eighth was on order. George Bernard Shaw was another among many celebrities who were enthusiastic about Brough motorcycles. Moving forward to 2008, vintage motorcycle enthusiast Mark Upham acquired the rights to the Brough Superior name. In 2013 he met motorcycle designer Thierry Henriette and asked him to design a new Brough Superior motorcycle. Three months later a prototype of a new SS100 was shown in Milan.

George Brough was a racer, designer, and showman. All Brough Superior motorcycles were high performance and superior quality. Most were custom-built to the customer's needs, and rarely were any two of the same configuration. Each motorcycle was assembled twice. The first assembly was to fit all the components. Then the motorcycle was disassembled and all the parts painted or plated as needed. Finally, the finished parts were assembled a second time. Every motorcycle was test ridden to ensure that it performed to specification, and was personally certified by George Brough. The SS100 model was ridden at 100 mph (160 km/h) or more before delivery. The SS80 model was ridden at 80 mph (130 km/h) or more before delivery. If any motorcycle did not meet specification, it was returned to the works for rework until it performed properly. The fit and finish was comparable to a Rolls-Royce car, and they were the most expensive road-going motorcycles in the world.

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