Grindlay-Peerless up for auction

The first motorcycle to cover one hundred miles in an hour. Only two left of the six made

ONE of just two known surviving Grindlay-Peerless JAP 500cc ‘Hundred Model’ is coming up for sale at Bonhams, Stafford.

The motorcycle, from 1929, lapped Brooklands at over 100mph in 1937. It's estimated it will fetch over £50,000.

When Grindlay-Peerless rider C W G ‘Bill’ Lacey became the first man to cover 100 miles in an hour on British soil in August 1928, the Coventry factory lost no time in bringing out a replica of his machine, the Brooklands ‘Hundred Model’, of which only five or six were ever made.  

It won the Brooklands ‘Gold Star’ award in 1937 in the hands of prominent VMCC member, the late Edmond ‘Boy’ Tubb. Now offered for sale by the Tubb family, this Grindlay has been displayed at the Brookland Museum since the late 1980s, and used by the Brooklands Society on numerous demonstration runs in recent years.  

The ex-Edmond ‘Boy’ Tubb 1929 Grindlay-Peerless represents the period of ‘no fear’ motorcycle racing when Brooklands was the centre for the world’s most epic speed record attempts.