AJS

Joe Stevens, a precision engineer in Wednesfield near Wolverhampton, built the family's first motorcycle in 1897 using an imported American engine. By 1909, after a Stevens-engined Wearwell machine won a trophy for a 24-hour non-stop run, his son Jack Stevens decided to contest the Isle of Man TT. A new company was formed — A. J. Stevens and Co., taking its initials from Albert John Stevens — and the first AJS motorcycle was shown at the Motor Cycle Show in 1910.

AJS entered the TT seriously from 1913, finishing tenth in the Junior class. With the Junior limit raised to 350 cc for 1914, the company grew its engine to 349 cc with four-speed gears and chain drive. Eric Williams won the 1914 Junior TT on an AJS, with the company also taking second, third, fourth, and sixth places, a dominant performance that announced the marque as a genuine TT force.

Postwar success followed quickly. Cyril Williams won the 1920 Junior TT despite pushing his broken machine home for nearly four miles. AJS swept the first four places in the 1921 Junior, and Howard R Davies won the Senior TT on a 350 cc AJS — the first time a 350 had taken the 500 cc class outright. Tom Sheard won the 1922 Junior, and Jimmy Guthrie won the 1930 Lightweight TT on a 250 cc AJS.

The 1922 AJS racing machine became known as the Big Port for its unusually large-diameter exhaust port and pipe. The overhead-valve 350 cc design was the cornerstone of AJS competition through 1927 and in production form from 1923 was also the company's most popular sports motorcycle. By 1927 it was clear that pushrod overhead-valve designs were reaching their limits in racing, and AJS developed chain-driven overhead-camshaft models: the 349 cc K7 and 498 cc K10. Jimmy Simpson achieved a third place at the Junior TT on the 350 ohc model, and Wal Handley took second in the 1929 Junior.

The R7 350 ohc variant won eight of nine Grand Prix contested and set world records at Montlhery including one hour at an average of 104.5 miles per hour and two hours at 99.5 miles per hour. This level of performance while the company was still a relatively small independent manufacturer represented a significant technical achievement.

Despite holding 117 world records, the development of the 1931 AJS S3 — a 496 cc transverse V-twin with shaft primary drive and alloy cylinder heads — proved ruinously expensive and slow to sell. AJS went into administration in 1931. After BSA failed to take control, the motorcycle assets were purchased by the Collier brothers of London, who operated the competing Matchless marque. Production moved from Wolverhampton to Plumstead in south London.

The Collier brothers were keenly aware of the AJS racing reputation and used the name on genuinely innovative machinery. In 1935 an air-cooled SOHC 50-degree V4 of 495 cc was displayed at the Olympia Show. Harold Daniell raced a supercharged version in the 1936 Senior TT; it had high top speed but lacked acceleration. By 1939 a water-cooled supercharged version of the V4 weighed 405 lb and reached 135 mph, becoming the first motorcycle to lap the Ulster Grand Prix course at over 100 mph.

World War II halted this development, but the postwar period brought two of AJS's most celebrated machines. The AJS Porcupine — a 500 cc parallel twin designed originally for supercharging, adapted when supercharging was banned — carried Les Graham to the first-ever 500 cc Grand Prix World Championship in 1949. The AJS 7R, a 32 bhp 350 cc overhead-camshaft single, became a landmark privateer racer alongside its AMC stablemate the Matchless G50.

In 1951, development engineer Ike Hatch built the 7R3, a three-valve-head version producing 36 bhp. For 1954, team manager Jack Williams lowered the engine in the frame and tuned the design to 40 bhp at 7,800 rpm. The revised machine won the first two rounds of the 1954 World Championship and took victory at the Isle of Man TT. AMC withdrew from works road racing at the end of 1954, following Hatch's death, but continued producing the two-valve 7R for privateer customers.

AJS continued under the AMC umbrella into the 1960s through shared models with Matchless and Norton. The two-stroke Stormer motocross machine, developed from 1966 and produced through 1974 in 250, 370 and 410 cc forms, represented a final chapter in AJS competition activity. When Associated Motorcycles collapsed in 1966, the name passed to Norton-Villiers. Production at the Plumstead works ended in 1969.

AJS's contribution to British motorcycle racing is defined by the span from its first TT win in 1914 through Les Graham's world championship in 1949 — an arc of competition achievement that made the marque one of the most decorated in British motorcycling history. Today a company trades under the AJS badge producing lightweight motorcycles, while the original Wolverhampton factory site is marked by a sculpture called The Lone Rider.