Peter James Insurance Blog
The Tiger’s Tale – Triumph’s TT Challenger
The Tiger 100 was Triumph’s 500cc challenger to the BSA Gold Stars and Norton Internationals in the Isle of Man Clubman’s TT races of the early nineteen-fifties. It acquitted itself reasonably well in that role, with ‘top six’ leaderboard places in nine of the ten races held between 1947...
Moto Guzzi’s Grand Prix Greats: Part Two
THE LEGENDARY GUZZI V8 The Ultimate Racer? Ask anyone interested in motorcycle history to nominate the most exotic and most desirable Grand Prix racer ever built, and the Moto Guzzi 500 V8 will certainly be very close to the top of their list of choices. It is a prime...
Moto Guzzi Grand Prix Greats: Part One
THE MOTO GUZZI 500cc V-TWIN A Grand Prix contender for twenty years Moto Guzzi’s 500cc V-twin was the longest-lasting Grand Prix contender of all time. It competed with success in top-level international races for two decades, winning its first race in 1933 and its final World Championship GP race...
Corvette: Our 70-year pictorial story of an American muscle car legend
The Chevrolet Corvette celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2023. An American Muscle car icon now, the Corvette was never actually meant for production, but seven decades on is still going strong. Here, we document the pictorial highlights of the incredible lifespan of this iconic classic. Scroll down and enjoy!...
Chevrolet Corvette: Plastic Fantastic!
How a fibreglass show car, initially not meant to be built as a production machine, captured the heart of America. America’s own sports car is 70. In that lifetime it’s been transformed from an anaemic, auto-only show car to a 200mph plus supercar, lived through 8 incarnations and, like...
Hot Hatch Genesis: The Golf GTI
At Peter James Insurance, we love the VW Golf and are the insurance partner to the Mk1 Golf Owners Club. Our earlier blogs examined how the Golf saved VW from the financial oblivion they had risked by sticking to their traditional Porsche-designed, rear-engine, air-cooled layout for far too long...
Freddie Dixon Climbing Kop Hill
In 1910, motorcyclists looking for somewhere to fully use the performance of their machines found just what they were looking for in the steep Kop Hill road that climbs to the top of the picturesque Chiltern Hills just outside the town of Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire. Within a year...
Mazda MX-5 history timeline
The Mazda MX5 was the sports car that revived the genre and today has a huge following around the world, not least within the UK, a country that was reminded of its obsession with the soft-top small sports car by Mazda’s masterpiece. You can read our other blogs starting...
Mazda MX-5: The best “British” sports car ever?
In our first blog on the cute and cool Mazda MX-5, we examined the design and development that went into creating the prototype. Once the decision to put a world-changing sports car into production had been made and the basic design concept had ended up becoming public knowledge (to...
Matchless, Sunbeam and AJS motorcyles: Part 2 (The fall)
Post-war production at Associated Motor Cycles began with Matchless and AJS 350 cc and 500 cc singles that were civilian versions of the wartime Matchless G3L. The only difference in their engines was that the Matchless unit had the Magdyno behind the cylinder while the AJS was in front....
