Climb on board the new 2024 BSA Gold Star and you’ll soon find that this rorty 652cc single-cylinder motorcycle is really a time machine that’s destined to transport you back to the 1950s.
When you reach that time zone seven decades ago, you’ll find young baby boomers being ferried around in sidecars instead of proper cars with their proud Mum and Dad riding alongside on the outfit’s motorcycle. Dad will be riding without a helmet as there’s no law enforcing the wearing of one, both parents will smoke cigarettes when they get home as they’re considered health promoting, and there will be no TV to turn on, but a young Elvis Presley will entertain them raunchily when they turn on the radio.
Oh, and Birmingham-based BSA will be the largest, most-prolific motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Its hero model back then was also named Gold Star, a ton-up (100mph) machine that covered itself in glory when racing both on the street and the track.
The 20th Century fall of the former armaments maker, Birmingham Small Arms, started when BSA’s CEO touched down in Auckland in the mid-1960s and was asked by a black-and-white TV news reporter whether he was worried about the growing popularity in this country of small-capacity motorcycles from Japan. His answer was that he thought the Japanese would continue to just build small bikes and leave the British bike-makers to build the bigger machines.
When Honda unveiled the four-cylinder, disc brake equipped CB750 at the 1969 Tokyo Motor Show, said exec must have felt the shock of suddenly witnessing a large crack in his empire. Just four years after the covers came off the CB750, the Birmingham factory was shuttered and the once revered BSA brand of a Gold Star on a circular red shield was mothballed.
The rights to that globally recognised brand were then passed around like a rugby ball with an activated grenade inside, until they finally found an owner with resources large enough to do something meaningful with them back in 2016.
The buyer was the Mahindra Group, employer of half a million minds and active in the automotive, telecommunications and aerospace sectors. The acquisition of the BSA name gave the Indian industrial giant a genuinely aspirational brand to accompany its purchases of Jawa and Peugeot’s scooter operations. It created a new subsidiary, Classic Legends Pvt Ltd, and the company first unveiled the new Gold Star range in late 2022 after a lengthy delay in development caused by the Covid crisis.
Is the new Gold Star worth the wait? Definitely. For it reminds us of everything that made the 1950s version great. The engine, developed with input from BRP-Rotax, is the new Star’s greatest achievement for the way it delivers smooth syrupy riding force throughout the first half of the rev range. Your Grandad will approve of how you can probably hook this bike up to a sidecar and ride off without noticing it.
There’s a kick further up the rev range that is more associated with Canada’s Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) than with historic BSAs, but it triggers vibration that’s intrusive enough to numb gloved fingers and fuzz rear view mirrors. Fortunately, the BRP-like top end is handy for short overtakes on the highway before relaxing back into the speed limit-friendly BSA-zone again. No bike is more self-policing of its cruising speed on the open road.
Transmission components also exhibit refined development. The clutch disengages progressively and with that smooth low-end engine grunt translating traction into motion, the BSA immediately puts a smile on its rider’s face. The five-speed gearbox serves up smooth accurate shifts, adding this bike’s ease of operation along with the simple controls, low seat height, instruments that recall those of the original Goldie, and well-considered rider ergonomics.
Not quite so endearing is the 213kg BSA’s cradle-frame, twin rear shock chassis. The grip of Pirelli’s Phantom SportComp radial tyres doesn’t match that of the tyres that wore the same name and tread pattern during the production motorcycle racing wars in Australasia during the 1980s, and the suspension controlling the travel of both wheels is compromised by a lack of damping.
The bike does have some good dynamic ingredients, however, like the lightweight Excel alloy rims of the spoked wheels and the strong Brembo brakes. Consider the chassis to be a work in progress.
This bike is the base Shadow Black version that marks the entry point to a six-model range at $10,990. My pick of the rest is the $12,990 Silver Sheen Legacy Edition flagship, which trades cheap engine case and exhaust paint for proper polished surfaces and is the model that is truest to the values of the original. It’s the new BSA that most encourages a greeting: welcome back Goldy, I didn’t know that I missed you, but I did.
