Colin Seeley will celebrate three anniversaries by giving a talk on his fantastically varied career at the National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull, Birmingham, on the afternoon of Thursday, 25 August.
The former dealer-racer-manufacturer will be celebrating 60 years as a bike dealer, 50 years as a manufacturer, and 80 years as a human being.
He opened a showroom in Kent in 1956, aged 20, becoming a multi-franchise dealer. In 1966 he started manufacturing his own frames for racing machines, initially using AJS and Matchless engines. This quickly expanded to frames for a wide variety of machines.
Seeley was British sidecar road race champion in 1962 and 1963, and won the Dutch sidecar TT in 1964.
He gave up racing to concentrate on frame manufacture.
Seeley also ran an old folk’s home, set up a bike tyre service, was a key player in giving BSB a more professional image, ran the Crighton-Norton rotary race team, and is currently a representative for Bonhams auctions.
The talk is being organised by the AJS and Matchless Owners Club.
More in the next issue of BDN.