Colin Seeley 1936-2020

Colin Seeley 1936-2020

Dealer, manufacturer, and British sidecar road race champion Colin Seeley died in hospital on 7 January aged 84 following a fall.

He was regarded as a national treasure in the world of motorcycling and was constantly in demand to give speeches and act as guest of honour at events until his health began to fail in 2019.

His last main event was as Grand Marshal (guest of honour) at the Barber Museum, USA, Historic Festival in October 2018. His last act of derring-do was flying from Biggin Hill, Kent, in a two-seat Spitfire in 2017 as an 80th birthday treat. He was 81 when he took to the skies; his 80th had been the previous year, in 2016.

Seeley’s colourful and active life saw him entering the trade as a teenage mechanic-salesman, and then setting up his own repairs business in Belvedere, Kent.

Aged 20 (1956), he became a dealer for several British marques, enjoying the industry’s record sales year of 330,000-plus registrations in 1959.

By this time he had taken up motorcycle sport as a scrambler (1957). In 1960 he moved on to sidecar road racing, winning the British sidecar titles in 1962 and 1963, and setting the fastest ever TT sidecar lap on a British single (500 Matchless). In 1964 he won the Dutch TT.

In 1966 Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) went into receivership and Seeley, aged 30, was able to acquire the contents and manufacturing rights to AJS, Matchless and Norton racers. He had built his own Seeley race bike in 1965. Following the race shop coup his business concentrated almost exclusively on race bikes from 1966.

Seeley racers kept the British single competitive at GP level to the end of the 1960s. Today they continue to win countless classic races.

In 1971 he introduced the Seeley Condor 500 Matchless single, the first UK road bike to cost more than £1000.

From 1966 to 1980 Seeley made frames for 15 different marques. They include the monocoque 500 Suzuki twin racer and Seeley Honda-4 road bikes. All Seeley bikes remain highly collectable.

In 2006, with Redline Books, he published two substantial landmark books charting his career and the motorcycle industry in great detail.

Because of his achievements members of the AJS-Matchless and Norton owners clubs had been lobbying to have him honoured for his services to motorcycling and to charity. He had raised almost £250,000, mainly to buy pain relief apparatus for people in hospital.

BRIAN CRICHTON

Colin Seeley’s funeral is on Monday 10 February at 12.30pm at the Eltham Crematorium, Crown Woods Way, SE9 2AZ. A reception will be held at Foulston Suite, Brands Hatch. RSVP for catering purposes.

Colin Seeley is pictured with American Seeley fans at the Barber Museum and Circuit Historic Festival, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, October 2018