Black and white picture AJS 350cc Trophy Model 36/7

The text on the pictures is as follows:-

"The 1936 MS 350 cc Trophy racer Model 36/7"

Of one thing you can be certain, if George Rowley, ever loyal to the AIS marque (in a long career in road racing and rough-stuff riding he never rode another make) had not borrowed an elderly cammy racer from his new bosses, H. Colliers & Sons of Plumstead (makers of Matchless) you would not be looking at this black and gold beauty now. When the old Wolverhampton firm went broke in 1931 the Colliers bought up the remains which they moved to Plumstead. George Rowley went too - he was almost an MS fixture. But no-racing was the rule.

For two years George chafed under the frustration of this ban. Nearest he could get to the hard stuff was in the International Six Days Trial, then more like a road race over rough roads than a mud-plug observation trial. For the 1932 International George converted an old Wolverhampton-built cammy AJS into a trials bike. On it he was a member of the winning British International Trophy team. That’s where the word Trophy came from in the maker’s description of the machine featured here.

But in 1932 another old Wolverhampton cammy warhorse turned up at Dover docks, having been in Italy on loan. It had been adrift for six months and there was £10 due in freight charges. Colliers refused to pay and could not care less about an old racing machine. Geo Rowley cared. He sneaked off down to Dover, paid the tenner out of his own pocket and got the bike.

Back at the works he kept it hidden while he checked it over. Seemed spot on so he entered it for the Brookiands 100-mile GP. Journalists saw this entry of a cammy Ajay in a big race by a factory rider as writing on the wall. Was the famous racing marque returning to racing?

Matchless boss Harry Collier was furious. Rowley thought he was in for the sack but the humour of the situation prevailed. He was allowed to ride and, though in a fairy tale he would have won, he actually finished fifth in the 350 event and seventh in the 500 and might have done better if his rubber petrol pipe had not started to decompose with age and blocked the fuel feed.

Collier and the board of directors were so chuffed they decided to get back into racing there and then. The cammy AJS was redesigned with the magneto moved from in front of the engine to behind the cylinder but the characteristic chain drive to the camshaft, the long chain’s tendency to thrash damped as always by the patented Weller tensioner, a spring blade pressed on the slack side, was retained.

Started in 1927 as an engine to replace the immortal Big Port pushrod job, there was now a second generation built by the Ajay’s foster parents and there was to be a third generation from the same source and from the drawing board of the same designer Phil Walker. This was the equally immortal Model 7R affectionately nicknamed the Boy Racer because it aimed to provide postwar wheels for privateer riders hungry for racing after the long lay off. In that aim it richly succeeded.

The illustrated model came in racing trim with compression ratios up to 11 to 1 and polished internals. The competition version had a more modest ratio of 6 to 1. Both came in 350 form (Model 7) and 500 guise (Model 10). The racing edition proved reliable but not fast enough in the Isle of Man. The Colliers continued to support racing from that point on - C.E. Allen.

Drawn by Stephen Ruffle

Copyright Bruce Main-Smith Ltd."

A super picture in a 30 x 24 cm. (12 x 10 inch) size clipframe.

The picture offered does NOT have the "SAMPLE" watermark!!