Green WITH ENVY

Life aboard a 1950s 350cc British single is perhaps as good and as uncomplicated as it can get.

- JAMES ROBINSON

There are a couple of owners’ stories that always stay with me regarding Velocette’s post-Second World War, swinging arm ‘cooking’ 350cc offering, the MAC. One comes from a chap I’ve got to know in Ireland, who has had his same Velocette MAC since the early 1960s and he’s never felt the need to change or upgrade it; he’s always been delighted with the performance of his 350cc single. Until recently, when the regulations on one of his favourite events ‘barred’ the trusty MAC, it was, so far as I’m aware, his only machine.

The other comes from Velocette enthusiast and collector Neil Redley. When visiting him some years ago, Neil confessed that in many ways his favourite – and probably most used – of his Velos was his ‘humble’ swinging arm RS MAC (so ‘RS’ in Velo speak, for Rear Springing), eschewing his stable of exotic cammies, café racers and rarities (as well as the first Venom, among others) in favour of the pushrod ‘ride to work’ machine.