🇬🇧 1948 Velocette LE 150 🇬🇧
🇬🇧 R55,000 🇬🇧 Johannesburg
Velocette is a line of motorcycles made by Veloce Ltd, in Hall Green, Birmingham, England. One of several motorcycle manufacturers in Birmingham, Velocette was a small, family-owned firm, selling almost as many hand-built motorcycles during its lifetime as the mass-produced machines of the giant BSA and Norton concerns.
Renowned for the quality of its products, the company was "always in the picture" in international motorcycle racing from the mid-1920s until the 1950s.
Velocette was also keen to produce less sporty bikes, and by 1949 almost all the singles had been dropped to make way for the revolutionary LE. This strange looking bike had legshields, a pressed-steel frame and a watercooled, flat-twin sidevalve engine, initially of 150cc. Although well built and reliable, the LE was also expensive. Even when uprated with a 192cc engine in 1951 the LE was popular only with the police, earning it the nickname "Noddy bike".
The later Viceroy, a large 250cc scooter; proved even more disastrous, and Velocette went into liquidation in 1971.
