Export driven
Scrambling in the golden era was dominated by big bikes with big riders on them. Closely following the look of their roadster stablemates the dual purpose of these 500cc motorcycles was to attract attention and give the advertising and marketing departments something to shout about.
Their riders were of very different attitudes – some brash, outgoing, while others were quieter, preferring their results to do the shouting.
Such a lad was Matchless works rider Dave Curtis. Even now he’s still happier letting his results do the talking, or talking about the 600cc single his son Stephen was racing when CDB took the chance to snap the mighty machine at Northampton Classic Club’s scramble early last year – before Stephen got the thing dirty.
Initially, I thought the Matchless was a 500 until speaking with Stephen quite some months after the scramble. Like most people, I knew AMC could, and did, create various capacity machines for a variety of reasons, often because the American market demanded it
